Six

There was little of note in any of the towns and villages they passed through on their meandering way to the Border. The worst that they encountered were three cases where the village headmen were obviously trying to cover something up; twice they were lining their own pockets with tax money, once die headman was deliberately omitting his farms and those of his kin from the survey and tax rolls. In all three cases they actually did nothing when the cheats were uncovered; that was not their job. Instead, they noted these facts on their reports. When the taxmen arrived in the spring, they would come armed with the truth, and the guilty parties would find themselves paying a stiff penalty. This kept the onus of tax enforcement off the Heralds.

One thing was notable; the farther north they went, the greater the distance grew between communities, and the smaller the communities were. Now it was taking nearly a week’s ride to pass from village to village.

Talia remained withdrawn and silent, responding only when spoken to, and never volunteering any opinion. She seemed to warm up a little when they were between villages. She’d talk to Kris then, on her own; she even could be persuaded to sing a little.

But as soon as they came within a day’s ride of a populated area, the shutters came down, and she locked everything and everyone outside. When she spoke, she had an odd, flat, indifferent quality to her tone. She reminded Kris of himself the first time he’d walked the two-rope bridge on the obstacle course; there was that kind of tautness underneath the mask, as if she expected to fall at any moment. Tantris could tell him nothing, but even Rolan seemed unusually on edge.

There was one other thing to observe about the countryside; these northernmost communities were not only smaller, but they kept themselves behind palisades of strong logs, with gates that were barred at night. There were wolves and other wild beasts prowling the winter nights—and some of those beasts were on two legs. The Forest of Sorrows didn’t keep everything out of this Sector, and couldn’t prevent outlaws from coming in from the three directions other than the forest Border. Talia and Kris rode with all senses alert and their weapons loose and to hand now, and they bolted the Waystation doors at night.

All of which might have accounted for Talia’s nerves; except that she supposedly came from Border country herself, and should be used to keeping watch for raiders. Still, Kris reasoned, it had been a long time, and she had never been part of the defenders—she had been part of what was being protected.

But that wouldn’t account for Roian’s nerves. The Companions were both combat-trained and combat-experienced; they were more than guard enough for themselves, their Chosen, and the chirras. Kris watched Talia—unobtrusively, he hoped—and worried, and wondered.

They progressed through several towns and villages; Talia was beginning to feel as if she were falling to pieces, bit by bit. Her shields were eroding to the point where she had very little control over them, and nearly everything was getting through; she knew she was not only reading, she was inadvertantly projecting, because Rolan was becoming as nervous as she was. Her only defense was to withdraw into herself as much as possible, and Kris seemed bound and determined to prevent that. She felt lost, and frightened, and utterly alone. There was no one she could turn to for help; Kris himself had said that he thought her Gift was unique. She was certain now that he couldn’t give her any advice on how to handle it; his own Gift was very nearly the kind that could be weighed and measured. Hers wasn’t even necessarily detectable. And now it was becoming utterly unpredictable. Her feeling of panic and entrapment grew.

Finally they reached the town of Hevenbeck, very nearly on the Border itself. Tailia’s unhappiness was a hard knot within her now; the petty problems of the townfolk seemed trivial at this point.

In the previous village they’d had some of their messages catch up with them; one of them had been a brief note to Talia from Elspeth. She’d said only that she was doing well, hoped Talia was the same, and that Talia wasn’t to worry about her. And that added to Talia’s troubles. She had no notion of what prompted the note, or what could be happening back at the capital at this moment. Elspeth was in her first year as a trainee; like Talia she was the only girl in her year-group. She was probably confused—most certainly overwhelmed—and just entering adolescence to top it all off. And she would be having to cope with all the rumors Talia already knew, and whatever had sprung up in her absence. It was quite likely she needed Talia more now than she ever had since she’d been the Brat.

Not to mention the effect of the rumors on the rest of the Heralds.

Would they, like Kris, be tempted to believe them?

Or would they dismiss them out of hand and ignore the matter—leaving Elspeth to face them alone?

How was Selenay getting along without her? What if the Queen was turning to Orthallen for advice— Orthallen, whom Talia somehow could not bring herself to trust?

She was so engrossed in trying to hold control and deal with these other worries that had begun occurring to her that she was paying scant attention to the petitioners before her—a grim and straitlaced couple who reminded Talia unpleasantly of her own Holderkin relatives.

They were dressed in clothing of faded black and dusty brown; carefully mended and patched as if they were two of the town’s poorest inhabitants, although Talia and Kris had been informed by the headman that they were actually one of the wealthiest couples Hevenbeck boasted. Their mouths were set in identical disapproving grimaces as they harked over their grievances in thin, whining voices.

Those voices irritated her no end; their petty spite-fulness rasped at her through what was left of her shields, like having sandpaper rubbing over a sunburn. She was grateful when Kris interrupted them.

“You’re quite certain this girl is responsible for the missing poultry? There’s no chance it could be foxes or other vermin?”

“Our coops are as tight as our house, Herald,” the man whined. “More so! She’s done it; done it in spite of the good wages we’ve paid her and the comfortable job she’s had with us. I don’t doubt she’s been selling them—”

“But to whom? You said yourself no one in town will admit to buying fowl from her.”

“Then she’s been eating them!” the woman retorted. “Greedy she is, that I know for certain—”

Talia forced herself to turn her attention to the serving maid; her garb was even more threadbare than her employers, she was thin and pale, and looked ill-used. She certainly didn’t look to Talia as if she’d been feasting on stolen chickens and geese!

The girl briefly raised her eyes—and a disquieting chill threaded Talia’s backbone at the strange blank, gray gaze. Then she dropped her regard again, and Talia dismissed her misgiving as another manifestation of her lack of control over her Gift. She wanted away from them all; they made her skin crawl, and all she wanted was to have this nonsense over with so that she could retreat back into the relatively safe haven of the Station.

She spoke without thinking about anything except getting rid of them.

“I can’t see where you have any proof of what you’re claiming,” she interrupted sharply, “and I can’t see why you’re bringing it before Heralds—”

“Talia, you haven’t been listening,” Kris said in a low, warning voice. “It isn’t just the missing birds— though that’s all they seem to be worrying about. There’s other things—the runes on their doorstep in blood—the—”

“Kris, this is ridiculous!” she exploded. “All they want is an excuse to dismiss that poor child without her wages! Havens, Keldar used to pull that filthy trick once every year—hire some pathetic wench and dismiss her on some trumped-up excuse before her year’s wage came due!”

“Talia,” Kris said after a pause, his voice full of reluctance, “I hate to have to pull rank on you, but I’m going to have to insist—because you can work Second-stage Truth Spell and I can’t. I want you to cast it on all three of them in turn.”

“I can’t believe you’re wasting Truth Spell on something this petty!”

“That’s an order, Herald.”

She bit her lip at the cold tone of his voice, and obeyed without another word. The First-stage Truth Spell only revealed whether or not the speaker was telling the truth. Second-stage forced him to tell it.

Much to her surprise, when Kris questioned the couple at some length while she held the spell on them, their story was the same.

Then she transferred the spell to the timid-seeming servant-girl—and mouse became a rabid weasel.

The girl underwent a complete personality change when Talia’s spell touched her mind. She stared at her employers, eyes bright and feral, a fierce snarl twisting her lips. “Oh, yes,” she hissed softly. “Oh yes, I’ve been taking their birds. It’s little enough for all they’ve done to me—”

“What have they done to you?” Kris prompted.

“Beatings for the least little clumsiness—bread and barley-broth and moldy cheese, meal after meal. They own the biggest flock of hens in the town, and I haven’t tasted an egg or a bit of chicken in half a year! My pledged clothing is her castoffs, and worn to nothing by the time I get them. When I’m not bruised, I’m hungry, when I’m not hungry, I’m cold! But I’ll have my revenge—”

The look of mad hatred she turned on the two made them shrink back away from her, frightened at the transformation in her. And Talia clenched her hands until her nails bit into her palms, endeavoring to hold control in the storm of the rage and hatred she was experiencing.

“—oh, yes, I’ll have my revenge! That’s what the birds were for, you know. I’ve not been eating them. I’ve been sacrificing them—giving them to the wolves. They come to me every night now. Soon now, soon they I’ll teach me how to change my skin for one of theirs, and when I learn—when I learn—”

The mad light in her eyes told clearly what she expected to do to her employers when she’d learned to shift her shape. Talia went cold all over, shaking from head to foot. The beat of the girl’s emotions against her crumbling barriers was almost enough to send her fleeing in panic. Her breath froze in her throat, and she could feel herself coming perilously close to insanity herself.

“—and after them, the rest. And my gray brothers and sisters will help, oh, yes—” The maid began to raise her voice, and her words disintegrated into babbling; raving fragments of hatred and imagination.

It was too much for Talia to bear. The girl was shattering her barriers, and about to draw her down into madness. She reached out blindly, without thinking, using her Gift in instinctive self-defense, and touched the girl, putting her into a sudden sleep.

The plaintiff couple was speechless; for a long moment, so was Kris.

“I think,” Kris said carefully, at last, “That we had better take her and put her into the care of a Healer. I don’t know how much of what she said about the way you treated her was the truth, and how much she imagined, but I think perhaps you’d better agree to pay all the Healer’s expenses. And if you take another servant—you’d best be careful about her working conditions.”

Kris was ominously silent as they rode back to the Station in the gathering dusk. The disposition of the mad girl had occupied all the rest of the afternoon. It had taken the Healer nearly a candlemark to wake her from the deep sleep Talia had thrown over her. And Talia was profoundly shamed, as much for her panicked, unthinking reaction as for the self-centered, willful irresponsibility that had led her to neglect her duty.

“Kris ... I’m sorry,” she said in a subdued, unhappy voice as soon as they were past the city gates. “I didn’t mean—I—”

Kris said nothing, and Talia shrank back into herself, the last of her carefully-built self-confidence shattered.

He guesses—surely he guesses. I’m a failure; I can’t even control myself enough to complete half a circuit. I can’t do anything right.

But he made no reply, not even to condemn; she could only sense that he was thinking, but not what he was thinking about. She rode silently at his side, waiting for the axe to fall, all the way back to the Station. And the fact that it did not fall only made things worse.

Kris rode in silence, only now beginning to realize that by not giving her a little comfort and encouragement that he had made a nearly fatal mistake. Her self-esteem was far more fragile than he had guessed. And her nerves were plainly gone. Now he thought he knew why she would venture no judgments at all, and gave him her opinions hesitantly, and only when directly asked for them. When he asked her, back at the Station, she avoided answering all questions about how she was feeling, answering only that she was “all right.” He began to wonder if she’d ever recover from the incident . .. and he began to fear that he’d ruined her.

And then, deep in the darkness of the night, the disturbing thought occurred to him that she was slowly going mad, and perhaps taking him with her.

There was snow on the ground as they rode toward the tiny hamlet that bore the dubious distinction of being the settlement that was farthest north and nearest the Border, right up against the Forest of Sorrows itself. Talia, more used to having to exert herself to bolster what was left of her shields than to stretch out to sense the population centers, began wondering if her powers had finally failed her altogether. But, no—there was Kris, so clear to her raw mind that his proximity was almost painful. So it had to be something else.

She finally got up her courage and confided what she had not sensed to Kris. “There’s just too much ... well, ‘silence’ is the only way I can put it. I can hardly feel anything, and the little I can pick up is as if everyone were sleeping, or unconscious.”

“You’re certain that the cold’s not affecting you?” he asked.

I only wish it would, she thought wistfully, then answered him. “No ... I don’t think so. It was no colder back at Greenhaven, and I could feel the people from a day away.”

He considered. “All right then, we’d better pick up our pace to the fastest the chirras can maintain. If there’s something wrong, the sooner we get there, the better.”

The snow creaked underfoot, and the bridle-bells rang madly as they picked up the pace to a trot. The air was utterly still; the sky cloudless and an intense blue that almost hurt the eyes. Sun filtered through the bare branches of the trees, leaving shadows like blue lace on the snowbanks. It was a beautiful day, and the strange uneasiness Talia was feeling was entirely out of place in it.

The village itself was very quiet as they came within sight of it—too quiet by far. Sheltered between two hills, the cleared area in which it stood showed no tracks on the snow whatsoever, neither coming nor going. The gates stood open, and unattended. Kris’ face showed his alarm so clearly that Talia knew without having his emotions battering her that he was as fearful as she. He ordered Talia to remain where she was, and descended the hill they were on to the village gates, taking his chirra inside with him.

He hadn’t been inside long when she saw the gates slam shut, and heard the bar slide into its slots. Immediately following this, she saw an arrow arc over the palisade to land in the snow on her side of the wall.

She ran to where it had landed. It bore four rings; three were green, one was red. She checked the fletching pattern; it was Kris’ without a doubt. It might have seemed silly for him to have patterned the arrow when she’d watched him enter the village with her own eyes, but this was truly the only way for her to be certain that when the gate slammed shut it had been because he had shut it, and not outlaws lairing within.

This could only mean one thing. The entire village had fallen victim to some kind of plague.

Lord and Lady—what do I do— she thought frantically, then staggered as Rolan pushed her impatiently with his nose. She felt his annoyance as plainly as if he’d spoken it. He’d had more than enough of her self-indulgent nerves; this required action, simple action. She knew very well what she had to do, and she’d damn well better get about doing it!

It was as if something within her that had been broken was being splinted together. She forced herself to regain calm, to plan. She wrote a note, telling Kris that she was leaving her chirra tethered to the gate, and that he should take it inside when he saw that she’d left. She took a plain white arrow of her own, tied the note to it, and sent it back across the wall. She went through her packs, removing a map, a skin of water, and a bag of meal for herself and Rolan to share.

Consulting the map, she saw that the nearest Healing Temple lay five days by horse to the east. That meant that she and Rolan could make it in two.

She tethered the chirra, swung herself onto Rolan’s back, and they were off.

This was where the ground-devouring pace of the Herald’s Companion was worth more than gold or gems. A Companion could travel at the equivalent of an ordinary horse’s gallop for hours without tiring. If need be, he could subsist for several days at this punishing pace with little more than water and a handful or two of meal. He would need several days of heavy feeding and rest when the ordeal was over, but a Companion never faltered, and seldom even strained muscles or tendons under the conditions that would kill a horse. Any place a hooved animal could go, a Companion could go, including scrambling over icy, hazardous rock-falls only goats would dare. The only thing his Herald need worry about was whether he was capable of staying on his back!

Talia and Rolan pushed their pace far into the night; she ate and drank in the saddle, even dozed a bit. Their road was clear, and relatively dry; the footing was good, so Rolan exerted himself to the uttermost. There was even a full moon, so they could see their way quite clearly. The noise of their passing disturbed whatever wildlife there was, so they rode in a silence broken only by the sound of Rolan’s hooves pounding on the frozen ground. It was an eerie journey, like something out of a dream, a wild ride that never seemed to get anywhere. Rolan was relatively fresh, so they continued on until even after the moon had set. Finally, however, even he had to take a brief rest. Not long before dawn, they broke their journey in a tiny clearing alongside the road, beside a stream crowned with an ice-covered waterfall.

Rolan halted right next to the pool below the waterfall, his flanks heaving, his sides steaming in the cold, his breath puffing out and frosting around his nostrils. Talia broke the ice for him, but the water was too cold for him to drink safely. She gave him water from her own waterskin instead, filling it when it was empty, warming it against her body, and letting him drink until he’d had enough. She filled the skin one last time, and had a long drink herself after giving him about a third of the meal she was carrying. Just as the sun rose, striking fire from the be-jeweled waterfall, they were ready to resume the grueling run.

They stopped again near noon, for both of them had needs of nature to attend to. That did not take them long at all, and Talia took advantage of the daylight and relatively warm sun to strip his tack off him long enough for it to dry, rubbing him down with the towel she always kept in his saddlebag.

She leaned her head against his flank, knees feeling weak, and not just from the long ride.

Lady help me—Heaters have my Gift—how am I ever going to face them? How can I face anyone, falling apart like this? Oh, gods—I can’t bear it—

Rolan nudged her shoulder gently; she could almost hear him in words, so clearly did his message come to her. I’ll help you, the feeling said.

“Oh, Gods—can you?”

The reply was an unqualified affirmative. She sighed, and relaxed, and reached out to him—

And felt her shields coming up, held up by a force from outside herself; felt a calm come over her, and a kind of numbness that was so much better than the pain and stress she’d been living with that she nearly cried.

“How long—?”

His regret seemed to say that he couldn’t hold things for very long at all.

“Just make it long enough for us to get there and back. I’ll work so hard I’ll wear myself out, and that will keep things under control. I can’t project if I don’t have the strength to spare. I’ll figure out what’s gone wrong, I know I will—if I can just stay away from people for a while—”

Then let’s go, his impatient headshake said.

The tack, including the saddle blanket, was dry to the touch, so she lost no time in getting him saddled again and getting on their way, with anxiety riding pillion behind her.

They galloped into the courtyard of the Healing Temple shortly after dusk. Her Whites and her Companion gave her instant attention; Rolan had not even halted when a green-clad novice Healer was at her stirrup to receive her orders. Immediately behind him came two more, one with hot wine with herbs in it for Taiia, the other with fresh, warm gruel for Rolan. Both of them consumed their portions with gratitude, while a messenger went to arouse the two Heralds posted to this Temple. Meanwhile another novice lit torches all around the courtyard, and before Talia had finished her wine, a fragile, slender woman whose close-cropped hair flamed red even in the uncertain torchlight came at a dead run across the cobbled court. She had a heavy satchel slung over one shoulder, her green robes were flying, and she was tying a cloak on as she ran.

“I’m Kerithwyn;” she said as she reached Talia. “I’m the most experienced Healer here in plague diseases. The other two you asked for will follow as soon as our Heralds are ready, but I’m ready to leave now.”

“All right, then; the sooner we get back to Kris the happier I’ll be. You’re used to riding pillion with a Herald?” Talia held out her hand to aid the Healer astride Rolan.

“You could say that,” the woman replied, taking Talia’s outstretched hand. She gave Talia an odd look when their hands touched, hesitated a moment, then set her foot on top of the Herald’s, and lifted herself onto the pillion pad behind Talia with practiced ease.

“Rolan is a good bit faster than most Companions— so be prepared.”

Despite the advance warning, Talia heard the woman gasp a little in surprise as Rolan launched himself back the way they had come.

It was obvious, however, that the woman was no stranger to this kind of transportation. She held her seat without losing her grip on her medicinals or on Talia’s belt, but also without any panic-stricken clutching. She kept her cloak tucked in all around her, and kept her head down, taking advantage of the small shelter behind Talia from the wind of their passing. Talia was relieved to learn that she was prepared to eat and doze a-horse, and if anything, was even less willing than Rolan to stop for rest.

They reached the village shortly after midday of the second day of their return. It was still utterly lifeless, and Talia’s unpredictable shields had shut down on her, so that she couldn’t even sense Kris within.

She had the Healer dismount, then backed Rolan up to the gate to beat a tattoo on it with one of his hind hooves. No matter where Kris was, waking or sleeping, so long as he hadn’t fallen ill himself, he’d hear that.

She fretted, hands clenching on the reins, when he didn’t appear immediately after the pounding. He could so easily have caught the plague himself; they were anything but immune. Kerithwyn stirred uneasily by her stirrup, the same thoughts obviously occurring to her, by the worried look on her face.

But then she heard the bar slide back and the gate cracked open just enough to admit them. She rode straight in without stopping to dismount, the Healer following, and only slid off when they were inside the gates.

“The other two are less than a day behind us, but I was ready immediately, so I came on ahead,” Kerithwyn told Kris briskly. “What is the situation?”

Kris was sliding the bar back into place, and when he turned to face them, Talia wanted to weep with pity for him. She could hardly believe how worn-looking he was; he must have been on his feet since she’d left.

“It’s bad,” Kris said wearily, “It looks like the entire population was hit within a day or two. There were five dead when I got here, and I’ve lost three more since.”

“Symptoms?”

“High fever, delirium, a red rash, and swelling under the jaw and the arms.”

Kerithwyn nodded. “Snow fever—that’s what we call it anyway. It generally shows up right after the first few snowfalls; after Midwinter it seems to vanish and it never appears in warm weather. How have you been treating them?”

“Trying to get liquids down them, especially willowbark tea, although when the fever seemed to be getting too high, especially in the children, I packed them in snow for a bit to bring it down.”

“Excellent job! I couldn’t have done better myself,” she applauded. “I’ve got some specific remedy with me, but it will take a little time to do any good, so we’ll be doing more of the same with the ones not in immediate danger. I’ll start with Healing the worst victims now. Have either of you ever assisted a Healer before?”

“I can’t,” Kris replied shaking his head, so that his lank hair fell onto his forehead. “The last Healer I spoke to said my Gifts were all wrong. I’m afraid I’ll be of more use as a simple pair of hands.”

Kerithwyn turned to look at Talia, her look oddly measuring.

She swallowed hard, but answered. “I’ve never tried, but my Gifts are Empathy and Mind healing. My instructor said they were Healing types.” If I’m going to be assisting, I can’t have shields up anyway, and this is going to take so much energy I won’t be projecting either.

“Empathy in a Herald?” Kerithwyn raised one eyebrow. “Well, you ought to be a great deal of help, then. We’ll try it, anyway; the worst that can happen is nothing. Herald, have you isolated the worst cases?”

“They’re all in here,” Kris pointed to a small house immediately next to the gate. “When it didn’t seem to harm them to move them, I put all of the worst of them together.”

“Excellent.” Kerithwyn gave him about a pound of an herbal mixture, instructing him to make a cauldron of tea with it. He was to give every victim at least a cupful, and drink some himself. As Kris left to follow her instructions and care for Rolan, Kerithwyn entered the house with Talia.

The house was cramped and dark, with the windows kept shuttered against the cold air. Kris had moved as many beds and pallets into the three rooms of the house as he could fit. He had done his best to keep his patients clean and had herbal incense burning on the hearth against the miasma of sickness, but there was still a faint but noticeable odor of illness. So many people crowded together made Talia feel claustrophobic, and the smell made her faintly nauseous. She was only grateful that these people were apparently so deeply unconscious that there was nothing for her to have to try to shield against. Kerithwyn appeared not to notice any of this.

The worst of the sick ones was a frail old woman whose bloated jaws looked grotesque on her thin face.

“Take a chair and sit next to me, Herald,” the Healer instructed. “Make yourself comfortable, take my free hand, and drop your shielding—” Again that measuring look. “—and do whatever it is that you do when you prepare to Mindspeak. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Talia closed her eyes and forcibly ignored her surroundings and put her anxieties into abeyance by concentrating on an old breathing exercise.

It took her a long, considering moment to determine that she was still capable of going into deep-trance. With everything else going merrily to hell, she wasn’t entirely certain she’d be able to perform even such a rudimentary exercise as deep-trancing.

Tentative trial proved that fear, at least, was groundless.

Once she achieved the appropriate level of trance-state, the Healer appeared to her inner eyes as a nearly solid core of calming green-and-gold energy.

Gods be thanked, she thought with detached gratitude, Kerithwyn must be even more of an expert than she claimed.

It wasn’t just that the Healer possessed a controlled power the equal of any of the teaching Healers Talia had dealt with—it was also that Talia herself had nothing to fear from the Healer’s presence. Kerithwyn was allowing no negative emotions to ruffle the surface of her mind!

The patient seemed to be roiling with something dark, muddy-red. Talia observed with detached fascination as the Healer sent lances of light into these sullen eddies, cleaning and dispersing them, and feeding the tiny, flickering sparks she uncovered beneath them until they burned strongly again. As Kerithwyn worked, Talia could both see and feel energy draining from herself to the Healer, replacing what Kerithwyn spent.

Now that she understood what the Healer required, she opened the channel between them to its fullest possible extent and reached for Rolan’s support. Energy flowed to the Healer in a steady, powerful stream from the two of them, and the work picked up in pace and sureness. It was all finished in a moment, and Talia felt the contact between them break. She sped up her own breathing, turned her concentration outward, and opened her eyes.

The Healer’s gray eyes were filled with approval “Very good, Herald; you grasped the concept quite quickly. Can you continue as well as you have begun?”

‘Til give you all I have.”

“In that case, I think that the plague will claim no more victims. As you can see, we have done quite well with this one.”

The old woman bore little resemblance to the sick creature she had been when they started. The swelling in her jaws was already more than half gone, and it was clear that her fever was nearly broken. Talia was immensely cheered by the sight. This was the first time in so long that she’d done something right....

They treated every person in the house before the Healer insisted that Talia rest. Talia sought out their packs, remembering that she had seen them when she had entered. Kris had left them all in a heap by the fire. She dug out some dried meat and fruit, but found she had so little appetite that she couldn’t even raise enough interest to bite into the radons. Instead of eating, she sagged cross-legged on the hearthstone with her back to the fire, soaking up the heat with her eyes closed, too exhausted to sense anything, and so grateful for the respite that all she wanted to do was enjoy the stillness in her mind.

“Foolish girl! Didn’t you learn anything about Gifts at that Collegium of yours?”

Talia opened her eyes in surprise; Kerithwyn was standing over her with a steaming mug in one hand and a bar of something in the other.

“You should know perfectly well that if you don’t replenish your energy reserves, you’ll be of no use to anyone!” She thrust both articles into Talia’s hands. “I know you aren’t hungry—eat anyway! Finish these, then go find your partner and make him eat and sleep. He doesn’t look like he’s done either for a week. Don’t worry, when I want you, I’ll find you. And make sure your Companions are all right as well.”

The block proved to be dried fruit and nuts pressed together with honey. Under other conditions Talia would probably have found it to be revoltingly sweet, but once she’d forced down the first bite, it seemed to gain enormously in appeal and the rest followed rather quickly. She recognized the liquid for the tea Kris had been feeding the plague victims, and saved one bite of the bar to take the nasty taste out of her mouth.

She looked first for Rolan; Kris had removed his tack, thrown several blankets over him, and led him to the stabling area of the inn. Kris had left food and water within reach, but that was all he’d had time to do.

She groomed and cleaned him, grateful that Companions were intelligent creatures that could be trusted to walk themselves cool. He was obviously tired for the first time in her experience, and equally obviously hungry, but otherwise none the worse for the run. She blanketed him warmly against chill and hunted until she found the grain storage area. She added dried fruit to the sweet-feed and put plenty within easy reach, then made a pot of hot gruel, which Rolan slurped up greedily as soon as it had cooled enought to eat.

It occurred to her, tired as she was, that she ought to check on Tantris. Kris’ Companion whickered a welcome and ratded his grain bucket entreatingly. She laughed—how long it had been since the last time she’d laughed!—he had hay, he wasn’t about to starve, but he obviously wanted some of the same treatment Rolan was getting. She obliged him as he nuzzled her in thanks. The chirras, loose in a large enclosure that gave them access to the outside and which contained enough fodder for them for a week, were in fine fettle. She changed their water, and went to look for Kris.

It didn’t take much persuasion on her part to get him into the bedroll she had laid out on the hearth. He actually fell asleep before he’d finished the rations she’d given him; she gently removed the half-finished meal from his hands and placed it where he would see it when he woke, then took up the task she’d pulled him away from.

All three of them worked like slaves far into the night, snatching food and sleep in stolen moments when no one seemed to need aid too urgently. Oddly enough, the frail-seeming Kerithwyn exhibited the least amount of wear. She showed incredible stamina and tirelessness; she frequently scolded them into taking a rest when she herself had taken fewer breaks than either of them.

All three of them were worn and wan when the longed-for sound of hooves pounding on the gate signaled the arrival of the other two Healers and their Herald-escorts.

The two new Healers—a great, hairy bear of a man, and a round-faced girl who seemed scarely old enough to have attained full Greens—quickly assumed control from Kerithwyn, who found a flat space, a few blankets, and promptly went to sleep. Both Heralds were experienced in assisting Healers, and sent Talia and Kris to their bedrolls for their first steady night of sleep since they’d arrived here.

All of them were on their feet the next day, and back to the job at hand. They took it in turn to eat and sleep, and by the end of the week several of their former patients were in good enough shape to begin helping them care for their fellow victims. At that point Kerithwyn told Kris gently but firmly to be on their way.

“We don’t need you anymore—no, not even for the usual,” she insisted. “Our own Heralds can take care of any disputes; we get the laws and news at least once every month, and we’re perfectly capable of relaying reports. I want you two out of here before you catch this plague yourselves.”

“But—” Kris protested.

“Out!” she replied. “I’ve had this sort of thing happen to me six times already; this is the seventh. You are not shirking your duty. Loris and Herald Pelsin are going to be staying here until Midwinter; these people are not going to need you! Now go!”

Kris gathered his belongings, acquired some fresh food to supplement the dried—it would stay perfectly sound in the cold—left their reports with the Heralds who had brought the Healers, as well as giving them the written reports on the villages they had already visited to be sent back to the capital.

But Talia did not escape so easily. While Kris was conferring with the other two Heralds, Kerithwyn took her aside just before she was ready to mount Rolan. “Child,” she said bluntly, “Your shields are as full of holes as last week’s target, and if you weren’t exhausted, you’d be projecting everything under the sun! You’re in such a state that if I had any time, I wouldn’t let you leave this place. But I don’t have either the time or the energy to spare. I don’t know what you’ve been doing, or what you think you’re doing, but whatever it is, it’s dead wrong. You’d better get yourself in hand, girl, and quickly, or you’ll be affecting even the unGifted. Now go—and start working on that control.”

With those blunt words she turned on her heel and left; leaving Talia torn between running after her and begging her help, and slitting her wrists on the spot.

In the end, though, she gathered the ragged bits of her courage around her, and headed out the gate after Kris.

Kris consulted the map; Kerithwyn had ordered him to find a layover point where the two of them could take a long rest. He told Talia that he thought he’d found a particularly good Waystation for them to use as their resting-place. Talia nodded, sunk in her own misery; Kris was preoccupied with making certain of their current location, and hadn’t noticed anything—or at least, he hadn’t said anything to her about it. But after what Kerithwyn said ...

Well, she was going to have to be twice as careful as before, that was all.

They were a full half-day from the village now, and well into the Forest of Sorrows itself. Kris had called a halt around midday, so that they could all get a bite to eat while he checked his bearings. There were several narrow roads through Sorrows, and if they had missed theirs, or mistaken the road for a herd-track, they could get into trouble before nightfall.

But they were on the right road, and the Waystation was within easy striking distance.

It was fortunate that it was not too far distant, for just after they had dismounted and taken rations from their packs, the chirras began whuffing, and dancing uneasily.

“Talia, chirras don’t misbehave unless there’s a good reason,” Kris said with a frown of worry, as his jerked the lead rope from his hands for the third time. “Can you tell what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know . . .” she said doubtfully, still shaking from her confrontation with the Healer, and never having done a great deal of work with animals. “I’ll give it a try, though.”

She braced herself, and sent herself into the deep-trance in which she had been able to touch animals’ minds before. The image of what was causing their unhappiness was clear and sharp—and enough to send her flying back to consciousness with speed. “Snow,” she said succinctly, for the image had been crystal clear and highly sharpened by fear. “Lots of it—a big blizzard coming down out of the north. It’ll hit us before dusk.”

Kris swore. “Then we haven’t much time. Let’s get moving.”

Seven

The chirras resumed their good behavior, as if they understood that Talia had learned what was troubling them. They all pushed on as quickly as they could, but the icy road made it hard for both chirras and Companions to keep their footing, and the clouds piling up from the north were making it as dark as if it were already dusk. Then a bitter wind began, cutting through the trees with an eerie moan. The road they were following had taken a turn to the north about a furlong back, which put the wind right in their faces. Kris and Talia dismounted and fought against it alongside the Companions and chirras. When the first fat flakes began falling, they were already in difficulty.

Within moments it was no longer possible for either Herald to see more than a few feet ahead, and the wind was strong enough to whip the edges of their cloaks out of their benumbed hands. It howled among the tree branches, and ravened on the ground, shrieking like the damned. The trees groaned and creaked in protest, the thinner branches whipping wildly above their heads. It was so hard to be heard above the storm that neither of them bothered to speak, using only hand signals when there was something that had to be communicated. This was like no storm Talia had ever seen before, and she hoped (when she had any thoughts at all through the numbing cold) that it wasn’t typical for this Sector.

The snow piled up with frightening speed; ankle-deep, then knee-deep. They completely lost track of distance and time in the simple struggle to place one foot in front of the other. Kris and Tantris found the lane that led to the Waystation more by accident than anything else, literally stumbling into it as they probed the bushes at the side of the road.

The lane soon plunged down between two shallow ridges where they were sheltered from the worst of the wind. They let go of the girths they’d clung to and stumbled along in their Companions’ wake, trusting to their mounts’ better senses to guide them all to the Station. By the time they achieved it, they could hardly see the path ahead of them. The bulk of the Station loomed up before them out of the gray-white wall of snow only when they were practically on top of it.

The Station probably hadn’t been visited since the resupply team had last inspected and stocked it during the summer. A quick survey of the woodpile told them that there wasn’t enough stockpiled there to last for as long as they were likely to be snowed in. In frantic haste, they left the chirras tied to the building, removed everything from the packs on their Companions, fastened lead ropes from their own belts to the snaffles on the saddles and went out with axes to look for deadfall.

It was grueling work, especially coming on top of the previous crisis. Talia’s arms and shoulders ached with the unaccustomed work; what didn’t ache, was nearly numb with cold. Her cloak was caked with snow to the point where it creaked and bits of snow fell off when she moved. Her world narrowed to the pain, the axe in her hands, and the deadfall in front of her. More than anything else, she longed to be able to lie down in the soft snow and rest, but she knew that this was the very last thing she should do. Instead, she continued to struggle against pain and the driving snow, using the numbing cold and the ache of overtaxed muscles as a bulwark against despair—the despair that Healer Kerithwyn had evoked with her brusque warning. She drove herself in the gathering gloom until she became aware that she could barely see where her axe was falling. It was nearly night now—true night.

It was time to give up. As Talia and Rolan hauled in the last load while full darkness fell, it was all she could do to cling to his girth as he dragged her and the wood back toward the station. The wind had picked up—something she wouldn’t have believed possible—and it was all but tearing her cloak from her body. Her breath was sobbing in her lungs, sending needles of ice and pain through her throat and chest.

She opened the door of the Station, only to blink in surprise—for there was nothing before her but a gloom-shrouded little room with a door on the opposite wall. After a moment, her fatigue-fogged mind managed to grasp the fact that this Station, unlike any other she had seen previously, had an entranceway to buffer the effect of the outside chill.

She fumbled the second door open, Rolan crowding into the entrance after her. Kris had beaten her to the Station with his final load shortly before, and had fumigated it and started a fire in the fireplace. He unfastened her from Rolan; she stumbled thank--fully toward the yellow beacon of the fire with half-frozen limbs. He led Rolan into the shelter of the Station itself, and as she collapsed next to the warmth of the flames she saw that he had brought in Tantris and the chirras as well. It made things a bit crowded until he got them all settled, but Talia knew that there was no way anything could live long in the howling winds outside.

She peeled off her snow-caked garments and hung them beside Kris’ on pegs above the fireplace. Kris was already taking care of meal preparations, so after she slipped into her woolen shift and old breeches (feeling far too exhausted for a complete change of clothing) she made a nest of the dun-colored blankets from both their bedrolls on top of dry straw in front of the fire. This way they could warm their aching, shivering bodies in comfort while waiting for whatever it was to cook.

She blinked stupidly at the fire, mind and body alike still numb and cold. She held to that numbness, stubbornly, not wanting to face the alternative to numbness. She succeeded; she remained sunk in exhausted apathy long after she normally would have begun to show some signs of life. Kris was standing over her for several minutes before she realized he was there.

“Talia .. .” he began awkwardly, “I know this isn’t the time or the place, but there isn’t likely to be a better one. I have to talk to you.”

Without really realizing it, she rose slowly to her still-benumbed feet, feeling a cold that had nothing to do with the blizzard outside. “Ab-b-b-out what?” she stuttered, fearing the worst.

“Kerithwyn had some words with me before we left,” he said, as the despair she’d been holding off with the last of her strength came down on her with the same overwhelming power as storm—and with it, oddly enough, a hopeless kind of rage. “Hell, Talia— she told me you’ve been holding back on me; that your Gift is totally out of control!”

Something within her shattered, letting loose the storm she’d held pent up for so long.

Kris was expecting anger, denial—but not this! He was battered by alternating waves of suicidal despair, and killing rage; the shock of it literally sent him to his knees. His eyes filmed with a red mist. There was a roaring in his ears, behind which he could dimly hear the squeal of an angry horse and the clatter of hooves on stone.

That was what brought him out, before he grabbed a weapon and killed himself, her, or both of them. He built up the strongest shield he could, fought his way to his feet, and rushed her, literally slamming her into the wall behind her with enough force to make his own teeth rattle.

“Stop it!” he shouted at the wild, inhuman thing struggling beneath his hands. ‘‘Damn you, Stop it! Look what you’re doing to us!” He wrenched her around violently, so that she could see for herself the unbelievable sight of Rolan backing Tantris into a corner, teeth bared and eyes wild and red-rimmed. “Look what you’re doing to them!”

She stared—and collapsed so suddenly he didn’t even have time to catch her, for she fell right through his hands. She fell and curled into a limp ball on the cold stone floor of the Station, sobbing as if she had lost everything she ever held dear.

And the storm within the Station walls faded away to nothing.

He went to his knees beside her, and gathered her against his shoulder. She didn’t resist—didn’t even seem to know he was there. He held her while she cried, horrible, tearing sobs that seemed to be ripping her apart inside, while the fire he’d started burned lower and lower, and the storm outside echoed her heartbroken weeping.

Finally, when it seemed possible that the fire might die altogether, he picked her up and put her in the nest of blankets and hay. She curled up, facing away from him and still crying, while he built up the fire, finished the tasks he’d left undone, and returned to her.

He got in beside her, chilled to the bone, and took her equally cold body into his arms again. The violence of her grief seemed to have worn itself out; he shook her a little. “Come on—” he said, feeling more than awkward. “Talk to me, lady—”

“I-I—” she sobbed “I want to die!”

“Why? Because your Gift got out of control? What kind of attitude is that for a Herald?”

“I’m no kind of Herald.”

“Like bloody hell!” he interrupted. “Who says?”

“Everyone—you told me—”

“Oh, hell.. . ,” Now he realized what it was that triggered this whole mess in the first place—himself, telling her the rumors about her. Gods—he knew she hadn’t a high level of self-esteem—what he’d said back at the start of this trip must have hit her like a punch in the kidneys. He must have started her on a round of self-examination and self-doubt that turned into a downturning spiral she hadn’t the power to stop. Her Gift was the sort of thing that would feed on doubt and make it reality—which in turn would feed her doubts, reinforcing them as her loss of control turned rumor into truth.

And this was the result. A fully developed Gift without any controls on it whatsoever, and a young woman ready to kill herself the minute he turned his back.

“Listen to me—dammit Talia, listen!” He shook her again. “If things were that bad, Rolan would have left you. He’d have repudiated anybody not worthy of her Whites. Has he made any move like that at all?”

“N-n-n-no . ..”

“Has he even warned you?”

The sobs were fading. “N-n-no.”

“He’s helped you, hasn’t he? He’s kept your damned secret. He thinks you’re still a Herald. So act like one, dammit! Stop emoting and start thinking. You’re in a mess; now how can we get you out of it?”

She looked up at him for the first time, eyes swollen and red. “We?”

“We,” he repeated. “I’m as much to blame for this as you are. I should never have told you those damned stories—should have believed you when you told me they weren’t true. I’d be willing to bet it was my doubt that made all this worse. Hmm?”

She shook her head, then hid her face against his chest. He pulled her closer, and began stroking her hair and rocking her a little. “Poor baby—” he murmured, “—poor scared, lonely baby—here—try this.” He reached out and seized a small leather bottle from the top of his pile of belongings beside them, and passed it to her. “One of the standard cures for sensitivity is wine. This ought to blunt your edges good!”

Talia accepted the bottle, took a gulp and almost choked. The stuff was like drinking sweet, liquid fire!

“What—is—that?” she asked when she’d stopped gasping for breath.

“Something the Healers make—spirits of wine, they call it. They make it by freezing the wine they make from honey, and throwing away the ice; that’s what’s left. The one that looks like a bear gave it to me before we left.”

Talia took another drink, just a sip this time, and with more caution. It didn’t burn the way the first mouthful had, and left behind a very pleasant sensation in her mouth and stomach. And it certainly did blunt the edges of both her sensitivity and her raw nerves. That was the best thing that had happened to her all day, so she took a third swallow.

“Easy there, little one,” Kris laughed, sounding relieved. “That stuffs potent!”

“I can tell,” she said, feeling a bit giddy. “But I feel a lot better. Not so raw.”

“That was what I hoped,” he replied, appropriating the bottle and drinking from it himself. “I suppose we shouldn’t be drinking it on an empty stomach, but I figure you need it. Hell, after what I’ve been through, so do I!” She had drunk enough that she was just aware of Kris’ mental presence; his proximity was no longer painful. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She lay quietly in the circle of his arms, feeling utterly drained, as they continued to share sips of the bottle. The fire popped and crackled, with little bits of blue and green flame among the red and orange. She was finally beginning to feel warm all the way through—something she hadn’t thought likely out there in the snow—and relaxed—something she hadn’t thought likely ever again. The fire smelled of evergreens, like forest-green incense. The chirras and Companions shifted a little from time to time, rustling the straw Kris had laid down for them. Gods—what she’d almost done to them! She touched with Rolan just long enough to assure herself that he was all right. ...

His forgiveness and love was so total that tears came to her eyes again.

“Hey,” Kris said gently “I thought we’d agreed there’d be no more of that.”

When she didn’t reply, he put one hand under her chin, tilted it up, and kissed her. It was intended to be a brotherly kiss. It didn’t stay brotherly for more than an instant. “Bright Havens!” he breathed in surprise when they finally moved apart.

Talia leaned back into his shoulder; her desire had surprised her as much as it had him, although she knew that was a common enough reaction after great stress. She wasn’t aware of him as her counselor or even as a Herald at this moment—only as a friend and an emotional shelter—and knew with certainty that he was as aware of her need as she was of his own. This time she reached for him.

As their mouths met and opened, he gently slipped the shift down past her waist. She shivered in delight as his mouth brushed the back of her neck, the line of her shoulders, as he kissed away her tears; he sighed as she nibbled his earlobe timidly. With her shields gone, they seemed to be feeling every tiny nuance of each other’s reactions. As she traced the line of his spine with a feather-like touch, she felt it as much as he—when she tensed and gasped as he found an unexpectedly responsive spot, he tensed in sympathy as well.

Finally their mutual desires grew too impatient to be put off any longer; he slowly let her down on the blankets beside him, sank into her embrace, and entered her.

He was totally unprepared for the stab of pain that was shared as the pleasure had been. He would have withdrawn from her at once, but she clung to him with fierceness and would not let him go.

She’d expected pain, and endured it. What she had not expected was that he would curb his own desire, to bring her past the pain, and finally to patiently wait on her pleasure before taking his own. She shifted over as he collapsed, then nestled into the curve of his arm again. They curled together in their warm nest, spent and replete, and feeling no urgent need to do anything other than savor the experience they’d shared. For long moments there was no sound at all but the sounds of the fire, and the tiny stirrings of the four at the other end of the station.

He turned his head to look into her dark eyes, wide and drowsy with content. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?” he asked softly.

“You didn’t ask,” she said sleepily. “Why? Is it that important?”

“I don’t think I’d have loved you if I’d known.”

“All the more reason not to tell you,” she pointed out logically. She nestled closer to him, her head on his chest, pulling blankets over both of them. “But I’m glad it was you.”

“Why?”

“Among other things, my gossiping Heraldic sisters were right. It was ... a lot nicer than I’d been led to believe first times usually are.”

“A compliment?” he asked, amused.

“A compliment.”

A thought occurred to him. “Wait a minute. I thought you and Skif ...”

She smiled, the first real smile he’d gotten out of her in weeks. “That’s what you were supposed to think. It was awful—we both had horrid schedules, and we were so exhausted that we kept falling asleep before we could get anywhere.”

She told him the comic-frustrating tale of their abortive romance, and how it had finally culminated in their swearing blood-brotherhood, rather than bed.

“Poor Skif! And poor Talia,” he chuckled. “You knew he’d be teased half to death if that tale got out, didn’t you? So you let everyone think otherwise.”

“Mrn-hmm. Poor Skif .. .” she yawned, “victim of unrequited lust.” She was falling asleep in his arms, and as much as he hated to disturb her, he knew that he’d better.

“Wake up, sleepy. If you don’t want to greet the dawn with a headache, you’d better have some food in you, and something to drink besides that devil’s brew. The last thing you need is a hangover in the morning, and as potent as that stuff is, you’re likely to wish you had died if you let it give you one. And we may be warm now, but we’re going to wake up cold and stiff in the middle of the night if we don’t make up a better bed. After all we’ve weathered, I’d hate to see you cramped in knots for want of a litde sense.”

She yawned hugely but didn’t protest. They both rummaged out clean bedclothes and pulled them on. While he ladled stew out of the pot over the fire, she remade their “nest” with everything she could find to use as a blanket. He made hot tea, and they drank it with their meal.

They bedded down in each other’s arms after he’d banked the fire, seeing no reason now to return to their practice of separate beds.

“I’m awfully glad this happened now,” she said before he drifted off to sleep.

“Why’s that, little bird?”

‘Two sleep warmer together than two alone . .. and it’s getting a lot colder.”

Kris was pleased to discover that (unlike some lovers he’d had) Talia was a quiet sleeper; not at all restless, and not inclined to steal the blankets (which was, in his opinion, the quickest way to ruin an otherwise satisfactory relationship). He found her presence oddly comforting, and an especially good antidote to the howl of the wind outside.

He woke once when Tantris tickled his mind into wakefulness; he and Rolan wanted out. He was very grateful for the tiny entranceway this Station possessed; it wasn’t part of the usual design, but with crowding he could fit one Companion and one chirra inside and still close the door to the interior before opening the outer door. If the exterior door had opened directly into the station as was usually the case, every time he had to let them out he’d be letting most of the heat they’d built up out with them.

The wind hadn’t slackened in the least, and the snow was still coming down as thickly as before. It was definitely daylight, but he couldn’t even tell where the sun was, much less see how high it was. It took all his strength to keep the door from being blown out of his hands; he realized then that this was why they’d awakened him and not Talia. He’d left halters and lead-reins on the chirras, which the Companions used to lead them outside.

One more advantage of chirras, he reflected wryly. You can’t housebreak mules.

The scrape of a hoof on the door signaled their

return. He managed to hold to the door and slammed it behind them, but in spite of the buffering of the entranceway, their exit and re-entrance had stolen a noticeable amount of the heat from the room. He built the Fire back up after filling the biggest pot they had with clean snow, then carefully groomed all four of ice and snow. He made sure they were comfortable, and noticed with a smile that all four of them lay in a close-packed group, with chirras on the outside and Companions in the middle.

“You’re too clever by half,” he told Tantris, and smiled at the Companion’s amusement-laden reply.

.-Given the choice, would you take the outside? They’ve got the coats for this, brother-in-soul—we haven’t.:

He was grateful for Tantris’ nonchalance; both the Companions seemed to be taking the events of the previous night as simply one more obstacle to be met and dealt with, rather than an insurmountable disaster. That heartened him, for he expected to need their help.

He hung the pot full of half-melted snow over the fire, then banked it again before returning to the bed that was looking better by the moment.

When he slipped in beside Talia he got another delightful surprise. Instead of pulling away, Talia actually hugged his chilled body to her warm one until he was no longer shivering, despite being three-quarters asleep herself. There never, he reflected as he drifted back to dreams, was a truer test of friendship!

When he finally woke of his own accord, he judged that several hours had passed; it was probably late morning or early afternoon. There didn’t seem to be any real reason to get up; the winds still howled with the same ferocity outside.

“I wish these Stations had a window,” he said drowsily, “It’s impossible to tell if it’s still snowing or not.”

“No, it isn’t,” Talia murmured sleepily in his ear.

He hadn’t realized she was awake. “No, it isn’t, what?”

“It’s not impossible to tell if snow’s still coming down. Listen, and you can hear it on the roof and windward walls. It has a different sound than wind alone. It kind of hisses.”

Kris listened; she was right. There was a hissing undertone to the storm outside. “How did you know about that?” he asked, more than a little surprised.

“Comes of sleeping in the attic. There’re no windows in the attic of a Hold house, and that’s where all the littles sleep. If you wanted to know what kind of weather to dress for, you learned to recognize all the sounds that weather makes. Where are you going?”

“Now that we’re awake, I’m going to get the fire built back up.”

He got an armload of wood from the stack he’d brought inside earlier, exposed the banked coals, and soon had it blazing again. In spite of the heat given off by the banked coals, the room was icy; the chimney was cleverly baffled, but the wind was still succeeding in stealing some of their heat. He was quite chilled by the time he was satisfied with the state of the fire. When he slid back in beside her, Talia again snuggled up to warm him.

“That’s definitely above and beyond the call of duty,” he said, when he’d stopped shivering, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Consider it payback for last night.”

He deliberately misunderstood. “Bright Havens, little bird, you keep surprising me! I hadn’t the least notion there was such a sensualist under that serene exterior.”

She played along. “Why shouldn’t there have been?”

“You surely didn’t show any sign of it. And you certainly haven’t been ... practicing, shall we say?”

“I hadn’t found anyone I was enough at ease with before this except Skif, and that liaison seemed to have a curse on it!” There was rueful laughter in her voice. “But it wasn’t that I lacked interest; I never told you about Rolan.”

“What’s Rolan got to do with this?”

“Remember I told you that he’s always in the back of my mind? That I always know what he’s doing, and I can’t shield him out at all?” Her expression was a little shadowed as she realized she couldn’t shield anyone out at the moment.

“So?” he prompted, “Why would you want to?”

“Nighttime in Companion’s Field gets very interesting . .. and Companion mares share another characteristic with humans besides the gestation period.” When he looked blank, she sighed. “They’re always ‘in season,’ oh, wise counselor.”

“Good Lord. And if you can’t shield him out. ..”

“That means exactly what your filthy mind is thinking.”

“Secondhand experience?”

“Something like it.”

He pulled her head to rest comfortably on his shoulder. “Talia, I’m sorry I didn’t see the state you were in, and I’m sorrier I didn’t do anything about it.”

“Oh—I—” She sobered immediately when he mentioned her emotion-storm. “Gods, Kris, what am I going to do?”

“We.”

“What?”

“We. You, me, Tantris and Rolan. This is not the total disaster you seem to think it is. Let’s take the easy things. First of all, you’ve learned something you won’t forget. Now let me tell you a little something, Queen’s Own. The reason you’re out here is that you’ll see every kind of problem you’re likely to run up against at Court—only out here it will be much more clear-cut, much simpler. You learn how to handle it where it’s easy to deal with, instead of plunging right in and drowning. Take somebody who’s held a grudge for so long it’s an obsession. You’ve seen it once now, would you recognize it again?”

Talia thought about how she’d felt when the girl looked into her eyes; the odd chill she’d sensed. “Yes,” she said at last.

“And do you think you could handle it?”

“Maybe ... I think I’d have to get an assist though.”

“Good for you. Before this you’d have said ‘yes.’ Now you realize you might need help. You’re learning, greenie. Now the hard part. Your Gift has gone out of control; we have to get it back under control again. I’ll be willing to bet part of the reason for it going was that nobody recognized you need special training—training to keep your own emotional state from feeding back on your Gift. I’m not even certain there is such a thing.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I can’t think of another Queen’s Own in living memory that has had as powerful a Gift as yours. I’ve never heard of empathy strong enough to be used as a weapon. Talamir certainly didn’t have it—nor Keighvin before him. I don’t even know that there’s a Healer around with empathy that strong. Maybe a Healer could train you, but I wouldn’t care to bet money on the idea.”

“Then what. ..”

“We’ll bloody well invent the training. All four of us. First off, your shields are gone. That’s likely to be the hardest for you to get back, but I think maybe we can deal with it in a different way for now. Hey, Fairyfoot—”

Tantris looked up and snorted. :Yes, master of the world!:

“Go ahead, be sarcastic.”

:You started it.:

“This is serious, Hayburner. Can you impose shields on her from outside?”

Tantris looked at both of them thoughtfully. :Yes,: he said after a long pause, :but not for very long.:

“If you can, then Rolan can—”

:Has.:

Kris raised one eyebrow. “Huh. I should have anticipated that. All right, I know I can; I’ve reinforced shielding on the kids I was teaching. So if we take it turn and turn about, can we keep her buffered so long as it’s just the three of us she’s dealing with?”

:I would think so.: Tantris looked at the other Companion measuringly. :Rolan says to tell you we can probably even handle small gatherings of people.:

“Better than I’d hoped. Fine. I’ll take first watch. When I flag . . .”

:I’ll catch,: came the confident answer, :My pleasure, brother-in-soul. :

“Did you get the drift of that?” He turned to Tafia, setting up shielding around her as he spoke.

“You’re—oh, Gods.’“ The relief on her face was a revelation; until that moment he had not realized how much strain she was under.

“Right. Now .. . having gotten that taken care of temporarily, we’ll deal with the half of the problem that’s dangerous to others.”

“The projecting—”

“But not now. You’re too tired to project past the end of your nose unless I make the mistake of frightening you half to death again, so that can wait. I’m hungry, and I want a bath.”

Although they had used the Waymeet village bathhouse frequently, choosing a scrub by way of restorative over the sleep they had had little time for, it had been well over a day since the last time they’d gotten clean. Since both of them had fastidious natures, they were feeling it.

“You go first, then. I want to groom the four-feets, and I’ll wash afterward. I can start to smell them now, and if I don’t get them pretty well clean, things could get whiffy in here. Since I’m doing Rolan, I might as well do all four of them. There’s no need in both of us getting filthy.”

Kris sniffed; the air was faintly perfumed with an odor of wet wool and horse-sweat. “You don’t have to do all four, but if you insist, I’ll let you. You’re ruining my lovely self-indulgence, though. If you’re going to go all virtuous on me and work, I’ll have to find something to do as well.” He sighed heavily, and made sad eyes at her.

She made a face at him, feeling like her old self for the first time in weeks. She got dressed, threw her cloak on, then took the first chirra’s lead-rein.

Chores kept them occupied for the rest of the day, housekeeping and tending to mending that had been left neglected while they ministered to the plague victims. Talia was just as happy; she was reluctant to face her problems just now when she was so emotionally raw. After a quiet bit of lunch, Kris went to take inventory of their supplies.

There was a half-height door opposite the entrance to the station; it led to a storage shed. Kris found far more supplies there than he had dared to hope—and found some unfamiliar jars and barrels as well. He brought some of those into the Station.

The jars held honey and oil. “Someone near here must have left these after winter set in,” Kris said in surprise. “It wouldn’t be safe or wise to leave them here in warm weather; they’d go bad or attract animals. That’s why they’re not standard stock. What’s in the barrel?”

“The oil can be used in the lamp, too.” Talia opened her barrel. It held what seemed to be dried beans. Kris was perplexed.

“Now why .. .” he began, when Talia remembered something Sherrill had told her.

“Sprouts!” she exclaimed. “To keep us from the winter sickness, if we get stuck here longer than the fruit lasts. We’re supposed to soak those in water until they sprout, then eat the sprouts. They do that where Sherrill and Keren come from.”

Kris looked sober. “We may need them, too. Even if the fruit holds out, it’s dried; not as good for holding off winter-sickness as fresh.” He made a mental tally of all their supplies. “I think we can hold out for a month or so,” he decided, from experience with being snowed in before. “And from the looks of this storm, that’s exactly what may happen. It’s still going strong, and by the way the sky looked today, I don’t think it’s going to be slackening soon.”

“Do we have enough fodder, though? Tantris and Rolan are big eaters, and we can’t feed them on bark and twigs the way we can with the chirras if supplies run low.”

“There’s fodder and straw baled and stacked on the other side of the shed where you can’t see it, besides on the near side,” Kris reassured her. “It almost looks as though whoever was stocking this Station was expecting a storm this bad. It seems odd, but I don’t know enough about this area to tell you whether or not this type of weather is typical for this time of year. Dirk would know that better than I.”

“Whatever the reason for the abundance of supplies, it’s a good thing for us that they’re there.”

They did something about supper, and Kris returned the harp. With an inquiring glance in her direction, he began with a song that she’d sung at the Herald’s revel. Taking the glance as an invitation, she stretched herself next to him and began to sing quietly. He hummed the low harmonic under his breath; his voice, though no match for Dirk’s, was reasonably melodic. Behind them the Companions and chirras pricked their ears up to listen with every evidence of interest.

Suddenly two new voices joined in, wordlessly crooning an eerie descant. Talia and Kris jumped, startled, and stopped—the new voices stopped with the music.

Puzzled, they began again, this time peering into the darkened side of the Station. After a moment, the descant resumed.

“Well, that’s what I get for making fun of Dirk’s and Harthen’s tales!” Kri& said in surprise. “Chirras do sing!”

Rolan and Tantris were staring at their stable-mates with a kind of ironic astonishment. Evidently they hadn’t expected the singing either. The chirras, oblivious to everything but the music around them, were reclining with their eyes closed and their heads and necks stretched upward as far as they could reach. Their throats were pulsing, and the humming was, without a doubt, coming from them.

“Don’t feel badly. I wouldn’t have believed it either,” Talia replied. “I mean, they look like sheep, sort of, and sheep don’t sing. Probably there aren’t too many people playing or singing around them, which would be why more folks haven’t heard them. We never did; they were always outside in the lean-to.”

The chirras joined in happily on almost everything they played, but they particularly seemed to enjoy the livelier tunes. What was utterly amazing—apart from the simple fact that they sang at all—was what they sang. They crooned harmonics to the melody rather than following the melody itself, and usually chose the upper range in a descant. They would listen for a verse or two before joining in, but though very simple, their harmonizing always fit. Talia knew a great many human singers who couldn’t boast that ability.

They continued on for some time, so fascinated by this innuman choir that they forgot any worries they had. They continued until Kris’ fingers were much too tired to play any more. Although he dearly wanted to go on, after a few fumblings, which caused the chirras to flatten their ears and stare like a pair of offended old women, he was forced to admit it was time to give his hands a rest.

“In that case ..,”

“What have I decided? This is going to be rather hard on you, little bird—”

“And the past few weeks haven’t?” she replied bitterly.

“Not like this; it’s going to be pretty cruel. The way I figure it, the two of us not shielding, and especially Rolan, are going to be watching you like cats at a mousehole. The least little indication of projection, and we’re going to jump all over you. After a few days of that, I am willing to bet that you will by damn not be doing any projecting without knowing that you’re doing it!”

“It doesn’t sound pleasant,” she said slowly, “but it does sound like it may work,”

“Then once we’ve got you knowing when you’re projecting, we’ll move to handling the projection consciously. Then we’ll work on you controlling the level of it. Finally we’ll work on getting your shields back up.”

“If you think I can....”

“I bloody damn know you can!” he said- “But we are not going to be doing anything tonight. If you’re as worn out as I am—and if you’re not more worn out, you’re a better man than I, after all you’ve been through—you won’t be able to do anything, much less working something as delicate as a rogue Gift.”

As he spoke, he became acutely aware of his own mental fatigue, and the strain of holding shields on her. Just as he felt his own control waver, he felt Tantris slip into his place.

:My turn, brother,: the mental voice said firmly. He sighed and sent a wordless thought of thanks.

Talia readied things for the morning, while he cared for their Companions. She had shed her clothing and was lazily reaching for the woolen shift she was using as a bedgown, when she found her wrist caught by Kris’ hand.

He had come upon her quietly from behind, and now captured her other wrist, holding her with her back pressed into his chest. “Surely you’re not sleepy already?” he breathed into her ear, sending delightful shivers up her back.

“No,” she replied, leaning her head back as his lips touched the back of her neck and moved around to the hollow below her ear.

“Good,” he drew her down beside him, on top of the blankets he’d spread on the hearthstone, right next to the Fire. He stretched himself beside her so that she was between him and the fireplace, feeling truly relaxed for the First time since Elspeth was Chosen.

He cradled her shoulders while his free hand traced invisible patterns on her skin that seemed to tingle— she moved her own hands in half-instinctual response to what she felt from him; at first hesitantly, then with growing surety. Every inch of skin seemed to be doubly sensitive, and she murmured in surprise and delight as his hands did new and entrancing things. Just when she thought for certain that he’d roused her to the uttermost, he moved his seeking mouth elsewhere, and she learned how it was to be fully awakened to desire.

Learning from him, she followed his lead, as he roused her to fever pitch, let her cool a little, then aroused her senses again. Finally, when she was certain neither of them could bear any more, he sought her mouth again and joined with her.

The pain was less than nothing compared to what they shared.

When at last Kris disengaged himself from her, they lay twined together for a long, euphoric moment, still deeply in rapport. He half-rose and handed her the nearly-forgotten shift with one hand while pulling on his own robe. She slipped it on, lazily gathered up the blankets, and remade their bed. She curled up in it with utter contentment as he banked the fire against the night.

“That Gift of yours is not always a bad thing,” he said, finally. “Should you ever choose a life-partner, I think I would envy him, little friend. Now I see what they mean about wedding or bedding Healers—especially if all of them have the same kind of Empathy that you do.”

“Oh?” Her ears all but perked up with interest. “And what do they say?”

“That you may not get much time with them because they’re always likely to be called away—but what time you do get makes up for their frequent absences.”

She reached up to pull the blankets more securely about the two of them, and something odd about her hand caught his attention. He captured her wrist again, and held it so that the palm would catch the last of the firelight, frowning a little as he did so.

Her palm was disfigured by a deep, roughly circular scar.

“That,” she said quietly, answering the question he did not speak, “is the reason why I was afraid of men for so long—and why I don’t trust handsome ones. My brother Justus, with the innocent face of a golden-haired angel and the heart of a demon, did that to me when I was nine years old.”

“Why?” The word held a world of shock and dismay.

“He wanted ... I don’t know what he wanted; maybe just to see me hurting. He hated anything he couldn’t control. He used to inflict as much pain as he could on the farm animals whenever something had to be done with them. He’d half-drown the sheep, dipping them for insects; he’d cut them terribly, shearing them. Horses he broke were broken; there was no spirit in them when he was done. I think it galled him that I could have an escape from the boredom of Hold life that he couldn’t ruin—he couldn’t stop my reading or dreaming. He ordered me one day to drown a sack of kittens; I tore the sack open instead so that they all escaped. I’m sure he knew that that was exactly what I would do. He backhanded me, knocked me down flat, stepped on my wrist, and used a red-hot poker on my hand. I think that one time he overstepped what he’d intended; I don’t think he meant to burn me as badly as he did, at least not after he saw what he’d done. Gods, I’ll never, ever forget his face while he was burning me, though.” She shuddered, and he held her a little closer. “That—obscene joy—I still had nightmares about it right up through my second year at the Collegium. I know they heard me screaming, but no one came very fast because they knew he was setting a task for me and figured I was being punished for slacking. When I didn’t stop after a couple minutes, though, one of the Underwives came to check. After all the damage was done. When she saw me, he’d already thrown the poker down. He told Keldar Firstwife that he’d hit me for disobedience and I’d grabbed the poker to hit him back, but it had been in the fire too long. He didn’t even have to explain why it was that my palm was burned and not my fingers. They believed him, of course, and not me.”

“Gods!” He was sickened—and a little more understanding of why she hadn’t confided in him.

“It was ... a long time ago. I’m almost over what it did to me. I think if he were still alive, and subjecting a wife or children to his sadism . .. well, he’s not. He managed to get himself killed a year or two after I was Chosen. There was a raid, and he had to prove just how much braver he was than anyone else. And Keltev, who was bidding fair to grow up like him, seems to have learned better, so ...” She shrugged.

“That’s the one who used to tease you about wanting to be a Herald—Keltev? Now I know why you put up with the Blues for so long. You had practice; after Justus they must.. .”

“As far as physical tormenting, they were amateurs. Mental, though ... they were quite .. . adept. But I’d learned from my sibs that if you give them the satisfaction of knowing they’ve hit home by acting as if they’d hurt you in any way, they only get worse. And how was I to know I’d be believed?”

“Oh, Talia—” he held her closely against his chest. “Poor little bird!”

“It wasn’t so bad as all that,” she said softly into his shoulder. “Besides, I’ve learned better now, I’ve got people I can love, friends I can trust—my year-mates, my teachers—and now—” She looked up at him a little shyly. “—you and Dirk.”

“And everyone else in the Circle, little bird,” he replied, kissing her softly on the forehead, “I’m just sorry I didn’t trust you. But we’ll Fix it. We’ll Fix it.”

She simply sighed assent.

The fire was now little more than glowing coals, and Kris stared at them while he let his mind drift, not yet ready to sleep.

“You know, you and Dirk will get along beautifully,” he mused. “Your minds work almost the same way.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You wouldn’t do anything to save yourself pain, but you dared your brother’s anger to save the kittens. That’s so much like Dirk it isn’t funny. Hurt him .. . he’ll just go and hide in himself; but hurt a friend, or something helpless—Gods! He’ll sacrifice himself to save it, or he’ll rip your heart out because he couldn’t. You’re two of a kind; I really think you’re going to be more than casual friends.”

“Do you really think so?” she said, a little too eagerly.

All the pieces fell together, and the suspicion he’d had earlier became a certainty. “Why, Talia,” he chuckled, “I do believe you’re a bit smitten with my partner!”

He felt the cheek resting on his shoulder grow warm. “A little,” she admitted, knowing that it would be useless to deny it.

“Only a little?”

“More than a little,” she replied almost inaudibly.

“Serious?”

“I ... don’t know. It depends on him, mostly,” she was blushing furiously now. “I’m afraid it could get that way very fast under the right conditions.”

“But now?”

She sighed. “Kris, I don’t know, I just don’t know. And why am I bothering to get my hopes up? I don’t know how he feels . .. whether or not he’s likely to be the least bit interested in me. . ..”

“You may not. I think maybe I do. If I’m reading him right, he’s already interested.” Kris thought back on the way Dirk had acted right before he and Talia had left. He couldn’t stop talking about how envious he was that Kris had gotten her as an intern, and he kept on at great length about her wonderful voice. Normally, since that bitch at the Court had hurt him, he’d paid very little attention to women, except for the occasional ribald remark.

Then he’d hinted that it would be a good notion if they’d all practice together so they could do more as a trio. Holy Stars, he’d never once suggested that they practice together with anyone before, not even Jadus.

“For one thing,” Kris said slowly, “he wants us to play together on a regular basis. I mean, he wants us to play, and you to sing.”

“He does?” she said in bemusement. “He plays?”

“As well as I do, or better. Since my voice isn’t very good, though, and his is, he’s kind enough to let me have the playing to myself. Out on the road we play together quite often, but outside of myself hardly anyone in the Circle knows he can.”

“And he said I was full of surprises!”

“Oh, you are.” He caressed her hair absently. Lord of Lights, they were so well suited to each other. There was a great deal more to both of them than would ever show on the surface. There were depths to both of them that he knew he’d never see.

He chuckled a little.

“What’s so funny?”

“Bright Havens, I hardly dare think what you might be like in the arms of someone you truly loved! He’d better have a strong heart, or he might not survive the experience!”

“Kris!” she exclaimed indignantly, “You make me sound like the widowing-spider that eats her mate!”

He ruffled her hair. “Maybe I’d better make certain that you and Dirk make a pair of it. He’s the strongest man I know.”

“Keep this up much longer,” she said warningly. “and I’ll put snow down your back after you fall asleep.”

“Cruel, too. On second thought, maybe I’d better warn him off.”

“Do that, and I’ll go directly to Nessa when we get back, tell her that you confided your everlasting passion for her to me, but that you’re too shy to tell her yourself.”

“Not just cruel—vicious!”

“Self-defense,” she countered.

“Monster of iniquity,” he replied, tugging at her hair until it fell into her eyes. “You know, of all the people I can think of, I can’t imagine being able to stand being snowed in with any of them except you and Dirk—especially for as long as we’re likely to be stuck here.”

She grew serious. “Is it really likely to be that long?”

“If it doesn’t stop snowing soon, it could easily be a month. This Station is down in a valley and protected by trees. We’re not getting the worst of it. I tried to get past the trees earlier, and you can’t. The snow has drifted as high as a chirra in some places. Even after the snow stops, we’ll have to wait for the Guard to clear the road, because until they do we won’t be going anywhere.”

“How will anyone know where we are?”

“I told that Healer—the bearish one, I think his name is Loris—where I intended us to hole up. Besides, little bird, this may be all to the good. We may well need all that time to get your Gift back under control again.”

“That,.. that’s true,” she said soberly. “Oh, Kris— do you really think we can?”

He noted with a bit of pleasure, the “we,” for it meant she was no longer thinking in terms of dealing with the problem on her own. “Not only do I think so, but Tantris and Rolan do. You’re not going to argue with them, are you?”

“I ... I guess not.”

“I hear a doubt. No doubts—that’s what got you into this mess in the first place. We will get you back in control. I may not be a Kyril or an Ylsa, but I am a Gift-teacher. I know what I’m doing.”

“But—”

“I told you, but me no ‘buts’! Believe, Talia. In yourself as much as in me. That’s the weakest leg your Gift has to stand on right now.”

She didn’t reply to that; just stared thoughtfully at the fire until her eyes drooped and finally closed, and her slow, steady breathing told him she’d fallen asleep.

He remained awake for much longer, engaged in a struggle with himself he had to win, a struggle to set aside a Herald’s impartiality and wholeheartedly believe in her.

For if he could not—she was certainly doomed, and quite probably so was he. The moment she sensed doubt in him, despair and betrayal would turn her wild Gift against both of them. And he had no doubt of how that would end.

Eight

Kris pursued an icy apparition through the storm-torn forest, a creature that was now wolf, now wind, now an unholy amalgam of both. It glared back over its shoulder at him through snow-swirls that half obscured it, baring icicle fangs and radiating cold and evil. He shivered, unable to control the trembling of his hands, though he clenched them on his weapons to still their shaking...

His weapons—he looked down, surprised to see that his bow was in his hands, an arrow nocked and ready. The beast ahead of him snarled, dissolved into a spin of air and sleet with hell-dark eyes, then transformed back into a leaping vulpine snow-drift. He sighted on it, and more than once, but the thing never gave him a clear target.

Talia was somewhere ahead of him, he could hear her weeping brokenly above the wailing of the wind and the howling of the wind-wolf, and when he looked down he could see her tracks—but he could not seem to spot her through the curtains of snow that swirled around him. He realized then that the wind-wolf was stalking her—

He quickened his pace, but the wind fought against him, throwing daggers of ice and blinding snow-swarms into his eyes. The thing ahead of him howled, a long note of triumph and insatiable hunger. It was outdistancing and outnianeuvering him—and it would have Talia before he could reach her. He tried to shout a warning—

And woke with a start. Outside the wind howled like a demented monster. Talia touched his shoulder, and he jumped involuntarily.

“Sorry,” she said, “You—you were dreaming, I think.”

He shook his head to clear it of the last shreds of nightmare. “Lord! I guess I was. Did I wake you?”

“Not really. I wasn’t sleeping very well.”

He tried to settle himself, and found that he couldn’t. A vague sense of apprehension had him in its grip, and would not loose its hold on him. It had nothing to do with Talia’s problems; a quick exchange of thought with Tantris confirmed that she was not at fault.

“Kris, do you think maybe we should move the supplies?” Talia said in a voice soft and full of hesitation.

“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” he replied, feeling at once that somehow his uneasiness was connected with just that. “Why? What made you think of that?”

“I kept dreaming about it, except I couldn’t shift anything. It was all too heavy for me, and you wouldn’t help. You just stood there staring at me.”

“Well I won’t just stand and stare at you now.” He began unwinding himself from the blankets. “I don’t know why, but I think we’d better follow up on your dream.”

They moved everything from behind the Station to either side of the door on the front. Rather than diminishing, the sense of urgency kept growing as they worked, as if they had very little time. It was hard, chilling, bitter work, to manhandle the clumsy bundles of hay and straw through the snow, but neither of them made any move to give up until the last stick and bale was in place.

While there was still light left to see by, they took turns clearing the valley of deadfall. They finally had enough to satisfy Kris when they’d found the last scrap of wood that hadn’t vanished into snow too deep to be searched. It would not outlast being snowed in, but there was more than enough to outlast the storm. If, when the storm died, they couldn’t reach any more deadfall, they could cut one of the trees surrounding the station, evergreens with a resinous sap that would allow them to burn, even though green.

But when they returned to their shelter, their work wasn’t complete. For though there seemed little rational reason to do so, they continued to follow their vague premonitions and moved all the supplies from the storage shed into the Waystation. It made things very crowded, but if they didn’t plan on moving around much, it would do.

By the time they finished, they were as chilled and weary as they had been the first night.They huddled over the fire with their bowls of stew, too exhausted even for conversation. The wind howling beyond the door seemed to have settled into their minds, numbing and emptying them, chilling them to the marrow. They huddled in their bed in a kind of stupor until sleep took them.

The wind suddenly strengthened early the next morning, causing even the sturdy stone walls to vibrate. They woke simultaneously and cowered together, feeling very small and very vulnerable as they listened with awe and fear to the fury outside. Kris was very glad now that they’d trusted their instincts and moved everything to the leeward side of the Station and within easy reach.

“It’s a good thing this isn’t a thatched roof like the last Station we were in,” Talia whispered to him, shivering against him, and plainly much subdued by the scream of the wind outside. “Thatch would have been shredded and blown away by now.”

Kris nodded absently, listening mainly to the sound of the storm tearing at their walls like a beast wanting to dig them out of their shelter. He was half-frightened, half-fascinated; this was obviously a storm of legendary proportions and nothing he’d ever seen or read could have prepared him for its power. The Station was growing cold again, heat escaping with the wind.

“I’d better build up the fire now, and one of us should stay awake to watch it. Talia, make a three-sided enclosure out of some of our supplies or the fodder, and pile lots of straw in it. We need more between us and the cold stone floor than we’ve been sleeping on. Leave room for the four-feets; if it gets too cold they’ll have to fit themselves in nearer the fire, somehow.”

Talia followed his orders, building them a real nest; she also layered another two bedgowns on over the woolen shift. Kris uncovered the coals and built the fire back up—and when he saw the skin of ice forming on their water-kettles, he was glad he had done so.

They crept back into their remade bed and held each other for extra warmth, staring into the fire, mesmerized by the flames and the wail of the wind around the walls. There didn’t seem to be any room for human thought, it was all swept away by that icy wind.

Their trance was broken by a hideous crashing sound. It sounded as though a giant out of legend was approaching the Station, knocking down trees as he came. The noise held them paralyzed, like rabbits frightened into immobility. There wasn’t anywhere to run to in any event. If something brought the Station down, they’d freeze to death in hours without shelter. Neither of them could imagine what the cause could be. It seemed to take several minutes, approaching the Station inexorably from the rear, finally ending with a roar that shook the back wall and a splintering sound that came unmistakably from beyond the half-door.

They sat shocked into complete immobility, hearts in their throats, for a very long time.

Finally— “Bright Goddess! Was that where I thought it was?” Kris gulped and tried to unclench his hands.

“B-b-behind the Station,” Talia stuttered nervously, pupils dilated with true fear. “Where the storage shed is.”

Kris rose and tried the door. It wouldn’t budge. “Was,” he said, and crawled back in beside her.

She didn’t venture to contradict him.

Twice more they heard trees crashing to the ground, but never again so close. And as if that show of force had finally worn it out, the wind began to slacken and die. By noon or thereabouts, it had gone completely, and all that remained were the faint ticking sounds of the falling snow. Without the wind to keep it off the roof, it soon built up to a point where even that could no longer be heard.

The Station stopped losing heat. The temperature within rose until it was comfortable again, and the rising warmth lulled them back into their interrupted sleep before they realized it.

The Companions prodded them awake. How long they’d been asleep they had no idea; the fire was dying, but by no means dead, and the silence gave no clue.

Rolan impressed Talia with his need to go out. Immediately. Talia could tell by Kris’ face that Tantris was doing likewise.

He looked at her and shrugged. “Might as well find out now as later. We’re still here, and under shelter at least,” he said, and pulled on fresh clothing while she did the same.

It was not long till dark. The stacked fodder had kept the door clear of snow or they’d never have gotten it open. Beyond the shelter of the bales was a drift that reached higher than Kris’ head.

The chirras were not at all perturbed by the sight; they plowed right into it, forcing their way almost as if they were swimming, their long necks keeping their heads free of the snow. The Companions followed and the two Heralds followed them. After making their way through drifts that rose from between the level of Talia’s waist to the height of the first one, they suddenly broke into an area that had been scoured down to the grass by the wind.

The forest around them had a quality of age, of power held in check, that was raising the hair on the back of Talia’s neck. There was something here ... not quite alive, but not dead either. Something . . . waiting. Watching. Weighing them. Whatever it was, it brooded over them for several long moments. Talia found herself searching the shadows under the trees until her eyes ached, looking for some sign, and found nothing. But something was out there. Something inhuman, almost elemental, and—and at one, in some strange way she couldn’t define and could only feel, with the forest itself. As if the forest were providing it with a thousand eyes, a thousand ears....

“Where’s the road?” Talia asked in a small, frightened squeak.

Kris started at the sound of her voice, looked around, then turned slowly, evidently getting his bearings. The Station from here seemed to be only one taller drift among many. There were new gaps in the circle of trees that surrounded it. “That way—” he finally pointed. “There was a tree just beside the pathway in—”

“Which is now across the pathway in.”

“Once we get to it, we can have the chirras and Companions haul it clear ... I hope.”

“What about the back of the Station?” She was not certain that she wanted to find out.

“Let’s see if we can get back there.”

Working their way among the drifts in the deepening gloom, they managed to get to a point where they could see what had happened behind the Station, even though they couldn’t get to it yet. Kris whistled.

Not one, but nearly a dozen trees had gone over, each sent crashing by the one behind it, the last landing hard against the side of the Station. The storage shed was gone; splintered.

“At least we’ll have plenty of firewood,” Talia said with a strained laugh.

“Talia—” there was awe in Kris’s voice. “I never believed those stories about Sorrows and Vanyel’s Curse before—but took at the way the trees fell!”

Talia subdued her near-hysterical fear and really took a good look. Sure enough, the trees had fallen in a straight line, all in the direction of the force of the wind—except the last. There was no reason why it should have deviated that she could see, and had it fallen as its fellows it would have pulverized the Station—and them. But it had not; it had fallen at an acute angle, missing the Station entirely and destroying only the empty shed. It had almost fallen against the wind.

“Gods,” Kris said, “I—I never would have believed this. I never believed in miracles before.” He looked around again. “I ... this sounds stupid but, whatever you are . . . thanks.”

The steady feeling of being watched vanished as he said it. Talia found she could breathe easily again.

“Look, we’d better get back inside. It’s nearly dark,” Kris gazed up at the sky, and the snow that still fell from it with no sign of slackening.

Subdued by their situation and the destruction outside, they made their meal, ate, and cleaned up in silence. Finally Talia broached the subject that was troubling them both.

“Can we get out of here?”

“I’d like to be reassuring and optimistic, and say yes—but truthfully I don’t know,” Kris replied, resting his chin on his knees and staring into the fire. “It’s a long way to the road, and as I’ve told you, it will be worse beyond the trees. It’s going to take us a long time to cut a path there, with no certainty that the Guard will have gotten that far when we do make it.”

“Should we try to force our way without cutting a path?”

He shook his head. “The chirras could do it, unburdened, but not Tantris and Rolan. Even if they could, we’d need the supplies. I just don’t know.”

“Maybe we’d better just concentrate on digging our way out.”

“But how can we dig ourselves out with no tools?”

“There’s the tree blocking the way, too.”

Kris stared at the fire without speaking for a long time. “Talia,” he said finally, “Holderfolk never buy anything if they can help it—their miserliness is legendary. What do you know about making shovels?”

“Not much,” she replied ruefully, “But I’ll try.”

“Let’s take an inventory of our materials.”

They had plenty of rawhide for lashings, lots of straight, heavy tree limbs for handles and bracings, but nothing to use for blades. The unused bedboxes were so stoutly built that it would be next to impossible to pull the bottoms out, and the shelves were made of board too thick to be useful. There had been thinner wood used in the shelves of the shed— but they were fragmented now. Finally Talia sighed sadly and said with reluctance, “The only thing we have to use is the harp case.”

“No!” Kris protested.

“There’s nothing else. When we leave here we can detune My Lady and wrap her in blankets and cloaks and she should be all right without the case. The wood is light and strong, and it’s been waterproofed. It’s nearly even the right size and shape. We haven’t got a choice, Kris. Jadus wouldn’t thank us for being sentimental fools.”

“Damn!” He was silent for a moment. “You’re right. We haven’t any choice.”

He got the case from the corner on top of Talia’s packs where he’d left it. Wincing a little, he took his handaxe and carefully pried the front and back out of the frame, and handed them to Talia.

She fished a bit of charcoal out of the fireplace and drew something like the blade of a snow-shovel on each piece. She handed him one while she took up the other.

“Try and whittle it to that shape while I do the same.”

She shaved delicately at the edges of the wood with the blade of her own axe, with shavings falling in curls next to her. Kris watched her with care until he felt he knew exactly what she was doing, then began on his own piece. There was one blessing; the grain was fine enough that with sharp axes it was relatively easy to shape. When both their pieces approximated the look of a shovel blade, Talia marked holes in the boards for them to drill out with their knives. By the time they’d finished, their wrists and hands were tired and sore.

Talia flexed her hands trying to get some feeling and movement back into them. “Now I need two pieces about so wide,” she said, gesturing with her hands about two fingers’ width apart, “And as long as the backs of the blades. I expect you’ll have to cut them out of the frame.”

While Kris further demolished the harpcase, she rummaged in her packs for her pot of glue. When she found it, she placed it in a pot half-filled with water, and put that container over the fire so the glue would melt. Meanwhile she went through the dozen or so branches that looked to be good handle material and picked out the two best.

Once the glue was ready, she showed Kris where to drill holes in the branches, and how to taper the end that was going to be fastened to the blade. Her wrists just weren’t strong enough for the job. When he finished the first one, she lashed it to the blade with wet rawhide, stretching the thong as tightly as she could so that it would shrink and bind the shovel to blade as firmly as possible when it dried. Then she cross-braced the back of the blade with a smaller branch cut to fit, lashing it the same way to the handle. Lastly she glued the piece of frame to the back of the shovel blade to act as a stop to keep the snow from sliding off. She lashed another piece of branch to the handle behind the stop to act as a brace, then she glued every join on the whole makeshift shovel, saturating even the rawhide with glue. That finished all she knew how to do; she set the whole thing aside to cure overnight, and started in on the second.

“They’re not going to hold up under much rough handling,” she sighed wearily when she’d finished. “We’re going to have to treat them with a great deal of care.”

“It’s better than trying to do it with bare hands,” Kris replied, taking her hands in his own and massaging them.

“I guess so,” she tried to force herself to relax. “Kris, just how does the Guard clear the roads off?”

“They recruit villagers. Then it’s teams with shovels; they dig out the worst places, and pack down the rest.”

“I don’t imagine that it’s a very fast process.”

“No.”

The single word hung in the air between him. Talia was afraid, but didn’t want to put more of a burden on Kris than he already had by giving way to her fears.

The silence between them grew.

“I hate to say this” he broke it reluctantly “but you’re projecting. I can feel it, and I know it isn’t me, and Tantris just backed me up.”

Anger flared a little, followed by despair—

“Dammit Talia, lock it down! You’re not helping either of us!”

She gulped back a sob; bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, then steadied herself by beginning a breathing exercise; it calmed her, calmed her enough that she actually found the leakage, and blocked it. Kris heaved a sigh of relief, and smiled at her, and she felt a tiny stirring of hope and accomplishment.

Finally he let her hands go and went after the harp; she wasn’t in a mood to sing by any means, but he chose nothing that she knew. He seemed more to be drifting from melody to melody, perhaps finding his own release from distress in the music he searched. She listened only; the chirras seemed to have caught the somber mood and did not sing either. She used the harpsong to reinforce her own ritual of calming and did not open her eyes until it stopped.

Kris had risen and was replacing the harp in its corner of the hearth. He returned to her side and stretched himself next to her without speaking.

She was the one who broke the silence.

“Kris, I’m scared. Really afraid. Not just because of what’s happening to me, but because of all that—” she waved her hand “—out there.”

“I know.” A pause. “I’m scared, too. We ... haven’t got a good situation here. You—you could have killed us both the other night. You still could. And out there . .. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. Between the two, I just wanted to give up. I just wanted to curl up in a ball and hope it all went away.”

It cost him to admit that, Talia knew. “I wish I wasn’t so messed up; I wish I was bigger and stronger. Or a Farspeaker like Kyril,” she replied in a very small voice.

“You can’t help what happened. As for being a Farspeaker, I don’t think both of us together could reach someone with the Gift to hear us, and if we could, I don’t know that it would do any good,” he sighed. “We just have to keep on as we have been, and hope we get out of here before the supplies run out. That’s the real problem, when it comes down to it—the supplies. Otherwise I wouldn’t worry. We’ve got about enough for a month, but not much more than that. If we run out . . .”

“Kris—you know, we are in Sorrows—remember the tree? Maybe—maybe we’ll be sent game.”

“You could be right,” he mused, beginning to brighten. “It would take less magic to send a few rabbits within reach of our bows than it did to divert that tree.”

“And maybe we’ll get out before we have to worry about it. And you don’t have to worry about me, you know. I’m Borderbred. I can do with a lot less than I’ve been used to eating.”

“Let’s not cut rations down unless we have to. We’ll be using a lot of energy keeping warm.”

Gloom settled back over them. Talia decided that it was her turn to dispel it.

“I wonder what things are like back at Court right now. It’s almost Midwinter.”

“Pandemonium; it’s never less. Uncle hates Midwinter; there’re so many people coming in for the celebrations who ‘just incidentally’ have petitions that there are Council meetings nearly every day.”

She looked at him unhappily. “I don’t get along with your uncle very well. No, that’s a lie. I don’t get along with him at all. I know he doesn’t like me, but there’s more to it than that. I keep having the feeling that he’s looking for a way to get rid of me.”

Kris looked flatly astonished. “Whoa—wait just a minute here—you’d better start at the very beginning. I can hardly believe my ears—”

“All right,” she replied hesitantly, “but only if you promise to hear me out completely.”

“That’s only fair, I guess.”

“All right; when I first got to the Collegium I had a pretty miserable time of it as you know. Dirty tricks, nasty anonymous notes, ambushes—it was the unaffiliated students, the Blues, but they made it seem as if it was other trainees that might be responsible so I wouldn’t look inside the Collegium for help. It all came to a head—”

“When they dumped you in the river just after Midwinter—”

“And they meant to kill me.”

“What?” he exclaimed.

“It isn’t common knowledge. Elcarth and Kyril know; and Sherrill, Keren, Skif, Teren, and Jeri. Ylsa knew, so did Jadus; I think Alberich knows. Mero guessed. I’m pretty sure one or more of the others told Selenay some time later. One of the Blues told me to ‘give their greetings to Talamir’ just after they threw me in—I think the meaning there is pretty clear. They expected me to drown, and if it hadn’t been that my bond with Rolan was strong enough for him to know what had happened—well. But I was delirious with fever when they were caught and I couldn’t tell anyone. They claimed it was all just a joke, that they hadn’t thought I’d get worse than a ducking. Your uncle backed them up before the Council. So instead of being charged with trying to kill me, they got their wrists slapped and were sent home to the familial bosoms.”

“That’s hardly an indication that—”

“You promised not to interrupt me.”

“Sorry.”

“The next time we got into it was over Skif. It was right when Skif was helping me unmask Elspeth’s nurse Hulda. I needed to find out who had sponsored her into Valdemar besides Selenay and Elspeth’s father. Skif went to the Provost-Marshal’s office to find the immigration records, and Orthallen caught him there. He dragged him up in front of Selenay, accusing him of trying to alter the Misdemeanor Book. And he demanded that Skif be given the maximum punishment for it—stable duty with the Guard for the next two years on the Border. You know what that could have meant. At worst, he could have been killed; at best, he’d be two years behind the rest of us, and I’d have been without one of my two best friends all that time—as well as being without the only person in the Collegium who could possibly have helped me expose Huida. I got Skif off, but I had to lie to do it; and I can tell you that Orthallen was not pleased.”

Kris looked as if he wanted to interject something, but held his peace.

“Lastly there’s the matter of my internship. Orthallen ‘in view of my youth and inexperience’ was trying to pressure the Council into ruling I should stay out in the field for three years—double the normal time. Fortunately, neither Selenay, Elcarth or Kyril were having any of that—and pointed out that internships are subject only to the will of the Circle, not the Council.”

“Is that all?”

“Isn’t it enough?”

“Talia, this all has very logical explanations if you know my uncle. Firstly he couldn’t possibly have known about the students’ malice—I’m certain of it. He’s known most of them since they were in swaddling clothes; he even refers to people grown and with babes of their own as ‘the youngsters.’ And he probably felt obligated to act as their spokesperson. After all, you had two people to speak for you on the Council, Elcarth and Kyril.”

“I suppose that’s logical,” Talia said reluctandy. “But Skif—”

“Oh, Skif—my uncle is a prude and a stickler for convention, I know that for a fact. Skif has been a thorn in his side ever since he was Chosen. Before Skif came, there was never any problem with Heraldic students getting involved in trouble down in town—the unaffiliates and the Bardics, and once in a great while the Healers, but never the Grays.”

“Never?” Talia’s right eyebrow rose markedly. “I find that rather hard to believe.”

“Well, almost never. But after Skif started his little escapades—Lord and Lady, the Grays are as bad as the Bardics! It’s like the younger ones feel they have to top him. Well, uncle is not amused, not at all. He’s a great believer in military discipline as a cure for high spirits, and I’m certain he never meant anything worse for Skif than that.”

“What about me? Why does he keep trying to get between me and Selenay?”

“He’s not. You are young; his idea of Queen’s Own is someone like Talamir. I have no doubt he truly felt a long internship was appropriate in your case.” “I wish I could believe you.” “Holding a grudge is rather childish—and unlike you—”

“I am not holding a grudge!” “Then why are you even refusing to consider what I’ve told you?”

Talia drew a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. “There is a third explanation for what he’s been doing. It could be that he thinks of me as a threat to his influence with Selenay. And I might point out one other thing to you—and that is I am willing to bet the person who told you all about those ‘rumors’ is your uncle. And I’d be willing to bet he asked you to investigate them. He knows what my Gift is. He could well know what the effect of hearing that poison would be on me.”

Instead of refuting her immediately, Kris looked thoughtful. “That is a possibility; at least over the internship thing. He’s very fond of power, my uncle; he’s been Selenay’s chief advisor for a long time, and was her father’s before that. And there isn’t a great deal you can do to change the fact that Queen’s Own is always going to have more influence than chief advisor. And I hate to admit it,” he finished reluctantly, “but you’re right about my source of information on the rumors.”

Talia figured that now that she’d got him thinking instead of just reacting, it was time to change the subject. She would dearly have loved to have suggested that Orthallen might well have originated the rumors, but Kris would never have stood still for the implication that his uncle’s conduct was less than honorable.

“Kris—let’s try and forget about it, for a few hours, anyway. We’ve got other things to worry about.”

He regarded her soberly. “Like the fact that you had enough energy to project; like the fact that you could do it again.”

“Yes.” She drew a deep breath. “I could even break down again; I was right on the verge of it this afternoon. If we hadn’t had something to do, I might have. And I was—maybe hallucinating out there.”

“Hell.”

“I’ll—try. But I thought you’d better be warned.”

“Featherfoot?” He looked long at Tantris, then nodded in satisfaction. “He says he thinks hie and Rolan can handle you, if it gets bad again. He says it was mostly that Rolan was caught off-guard that things got out of hand the first time.”

She felt a heavy burden fall from her heart. “Good. And—thanks.’

He gave her a wink. “I’ll get it out of you.”

She made a face at him, and curled up in the blankets to sleep with a much lighter heart.

They woke at very close to their normal time; there would be no dallying today, nor for many days to come, not if they wanted to reach the road before their supplies ran out. They suited up in their warmest clothes, took the shovels, and began the long task of cutting a path to freedom.

The snow was wet and heavy—an advantage, since it stayed on their shovels better. But the very weight of it made shoveling exhausting work. They took a break at noon for a hot meal and a change of clothing, as what they’d put on this morning was now quite soaked through. They shoveled until it was almost too dark to see.

“We’ve got to get to that tree and get it moved out of the way while the snow’s still like it is now,” Kris said over supper. “If it should turn colder and freeze, we’ll never be able to get that thing moved. It would be stuck in ice like a cork in a bottle.”

“We’ll be all right as long as the snow keeps falling a little,” Talia replied, thinking back to her days watching the Hold flocks at lambing time. “We’ll only have to worry about the temperature falling if the weather changes.”

They turned in early, hoping to get to the tree before the end of the next day.

By late afternoon they had reached it, and decided, after looking the massive trunk over, that it would be best if they hacked it in half with their handaxes and hitched the chirras and Companions to the lighter half. When darkness fell, they were slightly more than halfway through the trunk.

Again they rose with the sun and returned to the tree. They managed to cut through it by noon, and after lunch made their attempt to move it.

They had decided the previous night to leave nothing to chance and had made a set of harnesses for themselves from spare rope. They hitched their own bodies right in beside the chirras and Rolan and Tantris.

It turned out that it was just as well that they had decided to do so. Only when all six of them dug in and strained with all their strength did it move at all.

All of them gasped and panted with the effort, and over-burdened muscles screamed out in protest, while jhe tree shifted fraction by minute fraction. It took jtntil dark to haul it clear of their escape route. As darkness fell, they dragged themselves back Iftto the Station, nearly weeping with aches and exhaustion. Nevertheless, they rubbed the chirras dry and groomed their Companions, fed and watered sind blanketed them. Only then did they strip off their own sodden garments and collapse on their bed. They were too boneweary to think of anything but lying down—and their aching bodies.

Finally, “Do you really want supper?” Kris asked her dully; it was his turn to make it.

The very idea of food was nauseating. “No,” she replied in a voice fogged with exhaustion.

“Oh, good,” he said with relief. “Neither do I.”

“I can’t seem—to get warm.” It took an effort to get the words out.

“Me either.” Kris sat up with a low moan. “If you’ll get the tea, I’ll dig out the honey.”

“It’s a bargain.”

They’d left hot water for tea on the hearth, knowing they’d want it. Neither of them rose any farther than their knees as they dragged themselves to their goals. Talia poured water onto the herbal mixture, spilling half of it as her hands shook with weariness. Kris returned with the jar of honey in one hand, and something else in the other.

He put the jar down with exaggerated care, and Talia spooned three generous dollops into each mug. Fortunately, it was too thick to spill as the water had. She pushed one mug toward Kris, who handed her something in exchange for it. It was one of the fruit and nut bars Kerithwyn had forced into them back at Waymeet. Talia felt sick at the sight of it.

“I know,” Kris said apologetically. “I feel the same way. But if we don’t eat something, we’ll pay for it tomorrow.”

She stirred the honey into her tea and drank it even though it was still so hot it almost scorched her tongue. As heat spread through her, the food began to seem a bit more appealing. As she finished the second mug of tea, she was actually feeling hungry.

Chewing the tough, sticky thing took the last of her energy, though. From the look of things, Kris was feeling the same way. The third cup of tea settled the question entirely. She just barely managed to get underneath the blankets before she was asleep.

She woke with every muscle screaming an angry protest. She shifted position a little, and a groan escaped.

“I wish I was dead—I wouldn’t hurt so much,” Kris moaned forlornly in her ear.

“Me, too. But I keep thinking of what Alberich always told us.”

“Must you remind me? ‘The cure that is best for the sore body is more of what made it sore.’ Oh, how I wish he was wrong!”

“At least we have to go out long enough to see what we have to deal with beyond the tree.”

“You’re right.” Kris uncoiled himself slowly and painfully. “And we have to wrestle more wood inside.”

“And more hay.”

“And more hay, right. There’s this much, little bird. If you feel like I feel, you couldn’t project past your own nose right now!”

They helped each other wash and dress; there were too many places they couldn’t reach for themselves without their stiff muscles screaming at them. Talia managed to concoct porridge with fruit in it, making enough to feed them twice more, and tea as well. They would probably be so tired they wouldn’t taste either, but it would be solid and warm, and hopefully they wouldn’t be so tired tonight that the very thought of food was revolting.

When they opened the door, the glare of the sun-light on all that snow drove them back—for the weather had changed overnight, and the sky was cloudless. Without some kind of protection for their eyes they’d be snowblind in moments.

“Now what?” Talia asked, never having had to deal with this kind of situation before.

Kris thought hard. “Keep your eyes shadowed from above by your cloak hood, and I’ll see if I can rig something for the snowglare.” “ He rummaged through his pack, emerging with a roll of the thin gauze they used for bandages. ‘‘Wrap that around your head about twice. It should be thin enough to see through.”

It wasn’t easy to see through, but it was better than glaring light that brought tears to the eyes.

The tree lay where they had left it, and beyond it was the pathway out. Somewhere.

It was possible to see where it went by the lane between the trees and the absence of underbrush. The problem was that it lay beneath drifts that from where they were standing never seemed to be less than four feet deep.

“Well, at least there’re no more downed trees,” Talia said, trying to be cheerful.

Kris just sighed. “Let’s get the shovels.”

The drifts were deep, but at least they were not as -wide as the ones in their valley had been. Though the snow was seldom less than two feet deep, it also was rarely more than six. They shoveled and tram-filed until dusk, then brought in more wood and fodder, ate, and fell into bed.

Talia woke in the middle of the night feeling very cold. Puzzled, she huddled closer to Kris, who murmured sleepily, but didn’t wake. Despite this, she kept feeling colder. Eventually she moved warily out of bed; as soon as she did so, the chill of the air struck her like a hammer blow. She slipped her feet into her sheepskin slippers, wrapped her cloak around herself, and quickly moved to pile wood on the fire. When the flames rose, she could see the eyes of the chirras and Companions blinking at her—they had moved out of their corner and nearer to the heat.

“ ‘Smaller?” Kris asked sleepily. “Why’s it so cold?”

“The weather changed again. The temperature’s dropping,” Talia said, thinking about how the wet snow outside must be freezing into drifts like out-croppings of white granite. “I think ihe luck-goddess just left us.”

Nine

When at last they slept again, it was restlessly; they woke early, and with a premonition of the worst. The icy chill of the Station did not encourage dawdling; they dressed quickly and went out to discover just how bad the situation truly was.

It wasn’t good, by any stretch of the imagination. The snow had frozen, thickly crusted on top, granular and hard underneath. The crust was capable of supporting their weight, and even the weight of the chirras unladen (providing that they held their pace to a snail’s crawl), but it would never hold the chirras with even a small pack, or the Companions. And as if that weren’t bad enough, it was obvious that their shovels were not sturdy enough to deal with snow this obdurate.

Both Heralds stared hopelessly al the rock-hard place where they’d left off digging the night before and at the now-useless shovels. Finally Talia swore passionately, kicked at a lump of snow, and bit her lip to hold back tears of frustration, and reminded herself not to let anything leak.

“Look, Talia, we’re not getting anywhere like this,” Kris said after a long moment of silence. “You’re tired; so am I. One day isn’t going to make any difference to us one way or the other—for that matter, neither will two or three. I’m your counselor; well, I counsel that we take a rest, and let our bodies recover, until we can think of a plan that has some chance of getting us out of here.”

Talia agreed wearily.

Once back inside, she lit the little oil lamp and surveyed the shambles they’d made of the interior of the Station. “We’re obviously going to be here a while, so it’s time we stopped living in a goat pen. Look at this! We hardly have room to move.”

Kris looked around, and ruefully agreed.

They began cleaning and rearranging with a vengeance. Working in the comparatively warm Station was by far and away easier than shoveling snow had been. Before noon, the Station was cleaned and swept and all was in good order.

“Had any ideas?” Kris ventured over lunch.

“Nothing that pertains to the problem. I did think of something that needs doing, though. Since we’re stuck until we can think of a way to handle that snow, we ought to do something about washing our clothing. The only warm things that I have left to wear are what I’ve got on.”

“There’s saddle-soap in the Station supplies to clean the leathers,” he said, thinking out loud, “and we could empty two of the barrels to wash in.”

“I brought more than enough soap for all the rest,” she told him, “And the Lord knows we don’t have to scrimp on water!”

“All right then, we’ll do it! I’m in no better shape than you—and I hate wearing filthy clothes.”

Under the primitive conditions of the Station, cleaning white clothing was not an easy chore. Again, however, it was easier than the digging and hauling they’d been doing, and a great deal warmer as well. Eventually every clean surface sported a drying garment.

“I never thought I’d want to see another set of student Grays again,” Talia said, sitting back on her heels and surveying her handiwork.

“I know what you mean,” Kris grinned, looking up from his last pair of boots. “At least the damn things didn’t show din quite so badly. How are you doing?”

“I’m done, since I did my leathers while you were washing.”

This finishes it for me.”

“Well, I still have hot water left—enough for two really good baths. It’s too bad we can’t fit ourselves into the barrels and soak, but at least we can get really dean.”

“Good thinking, little bird. Although after all the soap and water I’ve been immersed in today, there isn’t much that needs to soak!”

Things began to take on a more cheerful appearance once they were clean, especially since they weren’t aching from the punishing cold and muscle strain of the past few days.

Talia combed her wet hair out in front of the fire, more than half mesmerized by the flickering flames and the movement of the comb through her hair. The Station had lost the slightly stale odor it had acquired during the blizzard, and now smelled of soap and leather—very pleasant. Bits of old tales began to flicker through her mind—unconnected images dealing with tales of battle, of all things. Battles, and how the Companions themselves used to fight alongside their Heralds. Or were those images unconnected?

“Kris,” she said slowly, an idea beginning to form, “the main problem is the hard snow and the ice crust. Our shovels aren’t strong enough to break it into pieces. But if we wrapped their legs to keep them from being cut, Rolan and Tantris could—like they were fighting.”

“By the Stars of the Lady, you’re right!” he ex-daimed with excitement. “Not only that, remember now you wondered what good those huge claws did the chirras? They dig themselves hollows to lie in, in dirt or in snow. If we could make them understand what we wanted, we could have them dig out chunks of a size we could manage!”

“Havens, Rolan and Tantris can do that!”

Tantris snorted, and Ro!an sent Talia a little mental caress.

Kris laughed. “All right, granther—” he said to his Companion, looking happier than he had all day. He turned back to Talia. “The Source of all Wisdom over there seems to think we’ll be able to work faster than we did before. He wanted to know why we hadn’t thought of this until now.”

“Well you two wouldn’t have done us much good with the wet snow, now, would you?” Talia asked the two sets of backward-pointing ears. Rolan tossed his head.

“And the chirras would have made more of a mess than they’d have cleared. The snowdrifts weren’t stable enough until they froze,” Kris added, a little smugly. “So there.”

“Did he say anything else?” Talia asked, a little envious of Kris’ ability to Mindspeak with his Companion.

“He just told me he’s been worried about how hard we’ve been working—but then he actually ordered me to rest tomorrow. You’d think we were trainees.”

Talia shook her head ruefully, for there was no doubt that Rolan considered this to be an excellent idea. There was a distinct undertone to his mental sending of worry that both of them had been overworking.

“Rolan says the same. I don’t think I want to argue. Oh, Bright Havens, I hurt!” Talia stretched aching arms and shoulders. “This has hardly been the rest stop we were ordered to take.”

Kris groaned good-naturedly, stretching his own weary muscles. “If anything, I’m more exhausted than I was when we stopped, if that’s possible. I’m certainly a lot sorer.”

“Then I’ll make you an offer; want a backrub?”

“Do you?”

“Oh, Lord, yes,” she sighed.

Til work on you, then you work on me. Strip, wench—I can’t work through four shirts and a tunic!”

“It’s only two,” she protested with a laugh, “And they’re summer-weight at that. While I was cleaning, I wanted to clean everything!” Nevertheless, she complied, stretching out on a pallet of blankets on the hearth. Kris seemed to find every last ache, and drove each one out with deft fingers. Soothed by the gentle hands, she drifted into a half-sleep.

He woke her by tickling the back of her neck. “My turn,” he said, as she lazily turned her head.

She sighed with content and rose to her knees, and slipped on a shift (blessedly clean, and warm from the fire) while he took her place on the hearth. She tried to copy what he’d done to her, and hunted for the muscles that were the most tense, and so hurt the most. Before very long she had him as soothed and relaxed as she was, and they basked in the heat of the fire like a couple of contented cats.

“I’ll do anything you ask,” he murmured happily, “Anything, so long as you don’t ask me to move. And as long as you don’t stop.”

She giggled at the tone of his voice as she gently rubbed his shoulders. “All right, then—tell me about Dirk.”

“Promise not to stop what you’re doing?”

“Surely.”

“Good,” he said with satisfaction. “Because it’s a very long story. For one thing, I have to start with his grandfather.”

“Oh, come now—” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Is this really necessary, or are you just trying to ‘ prolong the backrub?”

“I promise you, it’s absolutely necessary. Now, ‘once upon a time’ when Dirk’s grandfather settled his Steading, he lived on the very Border itself. He was quite ambitious, so he added a little more to his lands every year, and only stopped when he had as much as one man could reasonably expect to keep under cultivation with the aid of a moderate number of hands. By then the Border had been pushed back by him and others like him. So now that it was a safer place to live, he married.”

“Logical, seeing as he had to have produced at least one offspring to be Dirk’s father.”

“Quiet, wench. As it happened, their only child was female, but it didn’t perturb him that he would be leaving the Steading to her; he fully expected that she would marry in due course, and the place would still be in the bloodline. However, the gods had other ideas in mind.”

“Don’t they always?”

“First of all, it turned out that his daughter had a really powerful Gift of Healing. Now this was as welcome as it was unexpected, since it’s hard to get Healers to station themselves near the Border. There’s always more work there than they can handle successfully unless they’re stationed with a Temple, and you know how Healers are—they’d rather die than leave something half-done. At any rate, Borderbred Healers always seem to feel they have a duty to serve where they were born, so there was little chance she’d end up anywhere else. Her proud and happy father sent her off to Healer’s Collegium, and in due course she returned in her Greens. So far everything had gone according to expectation. However, being the Healer put a crimp in her father’s original plans for her. It seemed that the young men of the area were somewhat reluctant to court a person whose attentions could, because of her Gift, never be entirely devoted to any one person. And this despite the tale I told you about them. Healers are, after all, Healers first and anything else second.”

“Like Heralds, or priests. Look at us.”

“Point taken. At any rate, not even the rather substantial inducement of her inheritance could lure any of the neighboring farmers or their sons to the nuptial table. The old man began to despair of having his hard-won acreage remain in the family. Then there came the second twist to the plot. Late one autumn night there was a terrible storm.”

“I’ve had my fill of storms.”

“Hush, this is a required storm. In fact, it was the worst autumnal storm that part of the Kingdom had ever seen. It began after sunset, and lightning downed so many trees that it was completely unnecessary to cut any for firewood that fall. Freezing rail fell from the heavens in sheets rather than drops. There was so much thunder that it was impossible to hold a conversation and impossible to sleep. And in the midst of all this chaos and confusion, there came a knocking on the farmstead door.” Kris was very obviously enjoying himself to the hilt.

“A tall, dark, mysterious stranger, no doubt.”

“Who’s telling this story, you or me? As a matter of actual fact, it was a stranger; half-drowned, half-frozen, half-dead and very much bedraggled, but blond, and hardly mysterious. It was a young Bard, only recently graduated from his Collegium and starting his journeyman period. He’d lost his way in the storm, fallen into a river, and had all manner of uncomfortable things happen to him. When he pounded on their door, he was already fevered, delirious, and well on his way to a full-blown case of pneumonia.”

“I smell a romance.”

“You have an accurate nose. Naturally, the young Healer took him in and nursed him back to health. Just as naturally, they fell head over heels in love. Being a man of honor, as well as having his head stuffed full of all those romantic ballads, the Bard begged the old man’s permission to wed his daughter in true heroic style. He needn’t have worried, because by now the old fellow was beginning to think that any son-in-law was better than none. However, he made it a condition of his agreement that they remain on the Steading.

It rather surprised the old farmer when the—he thought—feckless, footloose Bard agreed with all his heart—subject to the agreement of his Circle of course. How could the old man have known that our Bard was born a farmer, and that entwined with his love of music and his love of the daughter was his love and deep understanding of the land? Well, the Circle agreed—provided he compose a Master’s ballad about the storm, courtship, and all; and he settled down happily with all three of his loves—land, lady, and music. Then before the year was out, he had a fourth.”

“Dirk. So that’s where he got that wonderful voice!”

“And where he learned to play so well Actually, though, you’re a bit ahead of the tale. The first child wasn’t Dirk. He has three older sisters, two younger, and a baby brother. When they can be sorted into some semblance of order and organization, they have family concerts. You should hear them all singing together, it’s wonderful; I swear even the babies cry in the right keys! Well, grandfather passed to his reward content in the knowledge that the land would remain in the bloodline, since by the time he departed, two of the girls had begun enthusiastically producing enormous broods of their own.”

“I was asking about Dirk.”

“Talia, my little bird, you can’t separate Dirk from his family. They’re all alike; see one, you know what the rest are like. How things ever get done in that household I have no idea, since it seems to be formed entirely of chaotic elements.”

“Just like a Bard.”

“Actually, he’s the most organized of the lot. If it weren’t for him and the husbands of the sisters, they’d spend all their time flying in circles. There’s an incredible amount of love there, though; and it overflows generously on anyone who happens to find himself dragged unwittingly into their midst.”

“Like you.”

“Like me. Dirk insisted on hauling me home with him the first holiday after we’d met when he found out there wasn’t going to be anyone home with me but the servitors. They treated me exactly like one of the family, from bathing babies to teary farewell kisses. I was rather overwhelmed. I certainly hadn’t expected anything like them!”

Talia chuckled, picturing to herself the reserved, slightly shy young boy that Kris must have been, finding himself in the hands of what must have seemed like a family of madmen.

“Once I got used to them, I had a lot of fun. That’s why, every chance I’ve had, I’ve gone home with Dirk when he went. Right now four of his sisters are married. Three of them live in extensions to the original house and their husbands share the work on the Steading, because Dirk’s father has developed bad knees. The last has his own land to look after, but they’re still on hand for every holiday in die calendar. It’s a good thing they all get along so well.”

“We were talking about Dirk.”

“Right.” Kris’ eyes gleamed with mischief at the impatience in her voice. “He was Chosen even younger than I—only eleven; probably because at eleven he was more mature in a lot of ways than I was at thirteen. We were Chosen the same year, and almost the same month. He told me that Ahrodie Chose him in the middle of the marketplace on Fair Day, and he kept trying to direct her attention to his sister because he thought he was too ugly to be a Herald!”

“Poor child.”

“So we went through the Collegium as year-mates. He saw how lonely I was there, and how unused to dealing with other children, and decided that I needed a friend. And since I couldn’t seem to make one by myself, he was going to do it for me! In classes, though, I had to help him along, and he was never better than average. It was pretty well accepted by all of us that after our internships he was going to work Border Sectors and I was going to teach. Then we found out how our Gifts dovetailed, and how incredibly well we work together, and everyone’s plans were rather abruptly changed.”

“And you began working as a team.”

“Oh, yes. And we discovered that we have a kind of Gift for intrigue as well. The number of situations we’ve gotten ourselves into would astound you, yet we always seem to extricate ourselves and come home covered in glory.”

“Kris, what’s he really like?”

“Behind the jester-mask? Very sensitive—that’s his heritage coming out. Endlessly kind to the helpless; you should see him some time with a lap full of kittens or babies. Don’t think he’s soft and sentimental, though. I’ve seen him slit people’s throats in cold blood when they deserved it, and do it from behind in the dark without a pretext of fair play. He says that if they’re intending to do the same to him, it doesn’t make sense to give them warning. He can be totally ruthless in the cause of Queen, Kingdom, and Circle. Let’s see, what else is there? You’ve danced with him, so you know that his bumbling farmer look is totally deceiving. He’s one of the few people that Alberich will accept to act as a substitute with his advanced pupils when Alberich is sick. And for all that, he’s terribly vulnerable in certain areas. I helped him get over his broken heart, and I promise you, Talia, that I will personally break the neck of anyone who hurts him like that again.”

He was lying with his head turned to one side and pillowed on his arms; Talia could not help but see fierce, cold hatred in his expression at that moment.

Kris’s fierce tone as he spoke the last few words was completely unfeigned. He remembered only too well what Dirk had been like then—broken, defeated— it had been horrible to compare what that bitch had made bun into with what he had been before she’d worked her wiles on him. Dirk seldom shed a tear— but he had wept helplessly on Kris’ shoulder when she’d ruined his life and his hopes for him. It was a thine he never wanted to witness again. And if he had any say about it, he never would.

Then a painful thought occurred to him. He knew Dirk was more than interested in Talia ... and she had been showing evidence of the same sort of feeling. But he and Talia had most of a year to go on her internship, and now that they were intimate, it was damned unlikely they’d go back to their earlier relationship. What the hell was he going to do if she started getting infatuated with him?

It was more than a possibility; after all, nearly every other female he’d spent any time with had ended up in the same state.

He didn’t want to think about it ....

“I think it’s time to do something about your problem,” he said, thinking that trouble might be less likely if he reasserted his position as a figure of authority.

“Like what?” She sat up slowly, and shook her hair out of her eyes, her expression in the flickering firelight a sober one.

“I’m going to take you absolutely back to basics. Back to the very first thing they taught me.”

“Shielding?”

Hell, no, girl,” he replied, astounded. “More basic that—and if shielding was what they taught you , maybe that’s one reason why you’re having this . I’m taking you right back to the first steps.”Ground and center.”

She looked puzzled, and shifted a little, curling her legs under her. “Ground and what?”

“Oh, Gods,” he groaned. “How the hell did you get away with—of course. Visa must have thought you knew the basics. Maybe you did .... instinctively.” He bit his lip, thinking hard, staring off into the space beyond his internee. Talia just sat quietly, peering anxiously at him through the half-dark of the Station. “Trouble is, as my teacher used to say, instinct is no substitute for conscious control.”

“I—I guess I’ve rather well proved that, haven’t I?” she replied bitterly.

“Well, once instinct goes, there’s no basis for reorganizing yourself.” He took a deep breath, acutely aware of the faint smell of soap, straw, and animal that pervaded the Station.

“Gods.” She sighed, and rubbed her temple with one hand. “All right—do your worst.”

“Don’t ‘laugh,” he replied grimly, “Before I’m through it may well seem like just that. All right, are you comfortable? Absolutely comfortable?”

She frowned, shifted a little, then nodded.

He settled himself, folding his own legs under him, shifting until the straw under his blanket moved to a more comfortable place. “Close your eyes. You can’t sort out what’s coming in at you unless you can recognize what’s you and what isn’t. That’s what my teacher used to call ‘the shape inside your skin.’ Find the place inside you that feels the most stable, and work out from there. Feel everything—then put what you’ve felt away, because you can recognize it as you.”

He was using what he called “teaching voice” with her, a kind of soothing monotone. She’d gone quite naturally into a half-trance, fairly well relaxed. By unfocusing his eyes and depending on Sight rather than vision, he could See every move she made by the shifting energy patterns within her. Sight was a good Gift to have for this situation, maybe better than her own would have been. By lookingInot-poking in a peculiar sort of way that made his eyes feel strained, he could see energy fields and fluxes. What he Saw was difficult to describe; it was some-thtng like seeing multiple images or “ghosts” of Talia, ?galfe? one haloed in a different “color.” When he Looked at the unGifted or Gifted but untrained, the linages didn’t quite mesh and the edges were fuzzy and indistinct. In Talia’s case the edges were almost pittnfully sharp and the images were given to flaring at unpredictable intervals—and they were so unconnected they almost seemed to belong to more than one person. If she could find her center, they would fuse into one; if she could ground, the flaring would. ???

“All right, once you’ve found that stable place -- there’s a similar place outside of you—in the earth  itself. When you feel that, connect yourself to it. Finding the stable place is called ‘centering,’ connecting yourself to the earth is called ‘grounding.’ “

He could tell, although his own Gift wasn’t anything like hers, that she had almost managed both actions. Almost—but not quite. The images were over-lapping, but not fusing; and they dimmed and brightened and dimmed again. And he could see that she was off-balance and not-connected, although to her it probably seemed as if she’d done exactly as he asked.

Poor lady—he was about to do a very cruel thing to her.

He sighed, and signaled Tantris—who gave her a little mental shove.

A shove that translated into a very physical top-over.

“Not good enough,” he said coldly, as she stared him from where she was sprawled with a dazed expession on her face. “If you’d done the thing correctly, he wouldn’t have been able to budge you in. Ground and center.”

Talia tried—much shaken, this time. If anything,

Missing page?!

of energy exhausted by the efforts of the day. Kris remained awake a bit longer, trying to figure how he was going to fit in the training with the all-too-necessary effort of digging out. Just before he Finally slept, Tantris had the last word.

:Not one day,: Tantris ordered. :You’re more tired than you thought. You rest tomorrow, too.:

“I’m Fine,” Kris objected in a whisper.

:Hah! You only think you are. Wait until tomorrow. Besides, if you can get her centered, you’ll be on the way to solving that problem. That takes precedence, I think.:

“I hate to admit it,” Kris yawned, “But you’re right, Featherfoot.”

Kris had not realized how truly bone-weary they were until he woke first the next day to discover that it was well past noon. He woke Talia, and they finished mending all the now-dry garments, putting off the inevitable “lesson” as long as possible by mutual unspoken accord.

Finally it was she who said, reluctantly, “I suppose we’d better . . .”

“Unfortunate, but true. Here—” he sat on the blankets of their “bed,” and patted a place in front of him. “—I told you I was going to try a different tactic. You’ve linked in with me before, so you know what it’s like.”

She seated herself cross-legged, their knees touching, and looked at him warily. “I think I remember. Why?”

“I’m going to try and show you your center. Now, just relax, and let me do the work this time.” He waited until she had achieved that half-trance, closed his own eyes long enough to trance down himself, then rested his hands lightly on her wrists. It was little more than a moment’s work to bring her into rapport; that part of her Gift was still working, almost too well. He opened his eyes slowly, and Looked, knowing she could see what he Saw.

She looked, gasped, and grabbed—throwing both of them out of trance and out of rapport.

He had been expecting something of the sort and had been prepared for a “fall.” She had not been, and sat shaking her head to clear it afterward.

“That was a damn fool move,” she said, when at last she could speak.

“I won’t argue with that statement,” he replied evenly. “Ready to try again?”

She sighed, nodded, and settled herself once more. This time she did not grab; she hardly moved at all.

Finally she broke the trance herself, unable to take the strain. “It’s like trying to draw by watching a mirror,” she said through clenched teeth.

“So?” he replied, giving her no encouragement to pity herself.

“So I try again.”

It was hours later when she met with victory; as Kris had suspected, when she centered properly, it was with a nearly audible snap, a great deal like having a dislocated joint pop back into place. There was a flare of energy—and a flash of something almost like pain—followed by a flood of relief. Kris had Tantris nudge her—then shove her, with no effect.

“Ground!” he ordered; she fumbled her way into a clumsy grounding with such an utter lack of finesse that his other suspicion—that she’d never done grounding and centering properly before—were pretty much confirmed. It was then that he realized that her shields hadn’t just gone erratic, they’d collapsed; and the reason they’d collapsed was that they’d never been properly based in the first place.

“All right,” he said quietly, “Now you’re properly set up. Can you see now why it’s important?”

“Because,” she answered slowly, “You have to have something to use as a base to build on?”

“Right,” he agreed. “Now come out of there.”

“But—”

“You’re going to find it yourself, this time. Without my help. Ground and center, greenie.”

“Ground and center. Dammit, that’s not right.”

“Do it again. Ground and center.”

“Again, and faster.”

“Dammit, it should be reflex by now! Again.”

Talia held to her temper by the most tenuous of holds. If it hadn’t been for the concern he was feeling, so overwhelming that she could sense it with no effort at all, she’d have lost her temper hours ago. Ground and center, over and over, faster and faster— with Tantris and Rolan shoving at her when she least expected it.

The first time they’d pushed her before she was properly settled, she’d literally been knocked out for a moment; she came to with Kris propping her up, expression impassive.

“Tantris hit me,” she said indignantly.

“He was supposed to,” Kris replied, letting her go.

“But I wasn’t ready! It wasn’t fair!” She stared at him, losing the tenuous hold she’d had on her emotions. It felt like betrayal; it felt horribly like betrayal—

“Damn right, it wasn’t fair.” He answered the anger and hurt in her voice with cool contempt. “Life isn’t fair. You learned that a long time ago.” He felt the anger then—hers; it couldn’t be coming from anywhere else, since beneath his veneer of contempt, he was worried and no little frightened. He was taking his life in his hands by provoking her, and was all too conscious of the fact. “Dammit, you’re leaking again. Lock it down!” The anger died; she flushed with shame. He didn’t give her a chance to get back into the cycle of doubt and self-pity. “Now; ground and center—and get centered before they can knock you over.”

He didn’t even let her stop when they ate; snapping at her to center at unexpected moments, letting Tantris or Rolan judge when she was most off-guard and choosing then to push at her. It wasn’t until he was exhausted, so exhausted he couldn’t properly See anymore, that he called it quits for the night.

She undressed for bed in total silence; so barricaded that there was nothing to read in her face or eyes. He waited for her to say something; waited in vain.

“I’m not sorry,” he said finally. “I know it’s not your fault you got out of Grays half-trained, but I’m not sorry I’m doing this to you. If you don’t learn this the hard way, you won’t learn it right.”

“I know that,” she replied, looking up at him sharply. “And I’m not angry at you—not now, anyway. I’m mostly tired, and Gods, my head hurts so I can hardly think.”

He relaxed, and reached for the container of willowbark on the mantlepiece, handing it to her with a rueful smile. “In that case, I can assume it’s safe to come to bed?”

“I wouldn’t murder you there, anyway,” she replied with a hint of her old sense of humor. “It would get the blankets all sticky.”

He laughed, and settled himself, watching her make herself a cup of herbal tea for her headache. Before today he hadn’t been sure—but now he dared to believe she would tame that wild Gift of hers. It wouldn’t be too much longer before centering would be reflex. Then it was only a matter of time, to build back what she’d lost.

“Kris? Are you still awake?”

“Sort of,” he answered drowsily, lulled by the warmth and his own weariness.

“I just want to say that I appreciate this. At least, I do when you’re not pounding on me.”

He chuckled, but made no other reply.

“I need you, Kris,” she finished softly. “That’s something I don’t forget even when I’m angriest. I really need you.”

It took a while for the sense of that to penetrate— and when it did, it almost shocked him awake again. If he hadn’t been so tired—

As it was, guilt followed him down into sleep. She needed him. Good Gods; what if it was something more than need?

Talia waited until Kris’ deep and even breathing told her he really had fallen asleep, and carefully extricated herself from the bed without waking him. She always thought better with some task in her hands, a holdover from her childhood, so she took her cup of willowbark tea and set about polishing some of the bright bits of metalwork on Rolan’s tack. The cloak she’d wrapped around herself kept the chill off her back, and the fire in front of her gave off just enough heat to be pleasant. Thusly settled in, she put her mind to the myriad of problems at hand.

The fire crackled cheerfully; she wished she could feel cheerful. Lord and Lady, what an unholy mess she’d gotten into! The storm alone would have been bad enough; any of the problems would have been bad enough. To have to deal with all of them together . . .

At least she’d made a start, some kind of start, on getting herself retrained. Kris seemed happier, after this afternoon’s work. He had been right about one thing; now that she knew what “being centered” felt like, she’d never lose the ability to find that firm base again. She’d wanted to kill him this afternoon, and more than once—but she was learning in a way that would make her stronger, and now that she was calmer, she could appreciate that.

She needed him, more than she’d ever needed anyone else.

But—Lord and Lady—what if it was something more complicated than need, or even need and the kind of feeling she had for Skif?

He was handsome; handsome as an angel. And despite a certain smug vanity, a man she’d be more than proud to have as a friend. Look at the way he was taking his life in his hands—literally—for the sake of getting her back in control of herself and her Gift. He was kind, he was gentle, he was considerate, and with the way her mind had been playing tricks on her lately, it was more than a possibility that she’d unconsciously used her Gift to influence the way he thought about her. Even to the point of getting him into bed with her—

Lady knew she was no beauty. And if she had influenced him in that, she could have caused an even deeper attraction.

She clenched her hands on her mug so hard they ached. That was one thing she had not wanted. At least not originally. But now?

She liked Kris well enough. Well enough—but not that well.

She was attracted to Dirk, there was no question about that. And strongly; more strongly than she’d ever felt about anyone.

It was almost, she decided a bit reluctantly, as if Dirk was some hitherto-unrecognized, hitherto-unmissed, other half of herself, and that she’d never again feel whole after having met him unless—

Unless what?

Heralds seldom made any kind of long-term commitment; contenting themselves with the close friendship of the Circle, casual, strictly physical liaisons, and the bonds of their Companions. And truly, few Heralds she knew were at all dissatisfied with that kind of life. Realistically speaking, the job was far too dangerous to make a lifebond possible or desirable. Look what had happened to Keren when Ylsa died; if Sherrill hadn’t had exactly what she needed and been right on the spot, she might very well have death-willed herself in bereavement.

And she’d only seen Dirk a handful of times. But for Heralds, sometimes only once was enough. Her mind drifted back years.

It was late one night that they’d all been gathered in Keren’s room over hot mulled wine and sometimes ribald conversation. Somehow the subject turned from bawdy jokes to the truth behind some of the legends and tales told by outsiders about Heralds: they were laughing at some of the more absurd exaggerations.

“Take that love-at-one-glance nonsense,” Talia had giggled. “Someone ought to really take the Bards to task over that one. How could anyone know from the first meeting that someone they’ve just met will be a lifepartner?”

“Oddly enough, that’s not an exaggeration,” Sherrill had replied soberly. “When it happens with Heralds, that’s generally exactly the way it happens. It’s almost as if there were something, something even deeper than instinct, that recognizes the other soul.” She’d shrugged. “Metaphysical, sentimental, but still true.”

“Do you mean to tell me that both of you had that happen?” Talia had been incredulous.

“As a matter of fact, the very first time I set eyes on Keren,” Sherrill replied. “Notwithstanding the fact that I was just under fourteen at the time.”

Keren nodded. “Ylsa and I knew when we met midway through our third year—until then we’d never done more than wave at each other across the room since we had had very different schedules. We did wait, though, until we were both sure that it was something solid and not ephemeral, and until we’d completed our internships, before commiting to each other.”

“And I didn’t want to intrude on what was obviously a lifebond.”

“You would have been welcome. To tell you the truth, we’d wondered a little—”

“But I didn’t know that at the time, did I?” Sherrill had laughed. “Truly, though, Talia, anyone-I’ve ever talked to that has seen a lifebond has said the same thing; that was the way it was for Selenay’s parents, for instance. It either happens the first time you meet, or never.”

“And if it’s not a lifebond, there’s nothing you can do to make it one—to make it more than a temporary relationship, no matter how much you want it to be something more,” Keren had continued. “My twin found that out.”

Talia must have looked intensely curious, although she hadn’t actually asked anything, because Keren continued after a moment.

“Remember I’ve told you once or twice that I’ve got a niece and nephew almost your age? Well, they’re Teren’s. Not only were we not Chosen at the same time, but it took seven years for his Companion to come for him. By then I was a field Herald—and he was married and working the sponge-boat. Then it happened. He was Chosen. And the wife he had thought he was contented with turned out to mean less to him than he’d ever dreamed. He wanted to love her, he really did. He tried to make himself love her—it didn’t work. He went through an incredible amount of soul-searching and guilt before concluding that the emotion wasn’t there and wasn’t going to be, and that his real life was with the Circle and his Companion. And to tell the truth, his wife—now ex-wife—didn’t really seem to care. His children were adopted into our family and she turned around and married into another with no sign of regret that I could see. So you see,” she had concluded, “if you’re a Herald, you either have a tifebond and recognize it at once, or you live your life without one.”

Talia sighed.

If she were going to be honest with herself, she had to admit that this seemed to be exactly what had happened to her with regard to Dirk. Seemed to be—that was the key. How did she know that this wasn’t some fantasy she was building in her own mind?

It didn’t feel much like a fantasy, though. It was more like a toothache; or perhaps the way Jadus had felt about his missing leg. He’d said it had often seemed as if it were stilt there, and aching.

Well, there was something in Talia that ached, too.

Fine. What about Kris?

What she felt for Kris ... just wasn’t that deep. Yes, she needed him—his support, his expertise, his encouragement. But “need” was just not the same as “love.” Or rather, the emotion she felt for him was a different kind of love; a comradeship—actually closer to what she felt for Rolan or Skif or even Keren than anything else.

But if Kris had become infatuated with her—Gods, it almost didn’t bear thinking about.

Granted, he certainly wasn’t acting very lover-like. And earlier—he almost seemed to be throwing Dirk at her. Outside of bed he was treating her more like Alberich treated a trainee who had gotten some bad early lessoning and needed to have it beaten out of him. Except in the digging out, when he treated her as an absolute equal; neither cosseting her nor allowing her to take more than her share of the work.

Provided her mind hadn’t been tricking both of them—which was a very real possibility.

“Oh, hellfire,” she sighed.

At least she’d managed to clarify some of her feelings. And there wasn’t anything she could do about it anyway—not until she had her Gift under full control, and could sort out what was “real” and what wasn’t. She drank the last of the stone-cold tea, and put up the harness, then slipped back into bed. Right now the only thing to do was to enforce the sleep she knew she needed badly. It was best to just try and take things a day at a time.

Because at this point, she had more pressing problems to deal with, if she couldn’t get her Gift back under control, this would all be very moot....

For she was quite well aware of how close she’d come to driving both Kris and herself over the edge. It could happen again, especially if he did something to badly frighten her—and if it did—

If it did, it could end, only too easily, in his death, hers, or both.